I found reviewing the Pappano recording something akin to a tightrope walk. As a reviewer, you really want to encourage the majors to venture into the recording studios with projects that may take years to earn money. Yet at the same time, the current standards of singing is not quite what it used to be and if the acting onstage is (generally) much better, then that is not something anyone can experience on an audio only recording. Add that to the ghosts of Recordings Past who, Banquo-like, appear in every review of a new recording to scare the current participants, then it is very difficult to be even-handed. Ralph Moore's upcoming review of the Pappano Turandot, along with a certain US critic's Youtube review, offer a slightly less charitable view than my own which, in turn, is cooler than the one in Gramophone. As ever, you really need to hear it for yourself, but well-played Warner for using the original Alfano completion
Lee
Terence, I think that you will find my upcoming review, supplementary to Lee's more decorous but no less acute assessment, reveals that I am rather of your mind regarding that Pappano Turandot - but I do try- and even manage - to find things to praise. The great flaw lies in the abysmal solo singing - although I think Radvanovsky is admirable.
Oh my. Why are so many critics ahistorical? Not you, Mr Denham, but most of the principals involved in the Pappano Turandot had no business there. It's abysmal, especially Kaufmann's Calaf. The resl leave me nonplussed, save some Pappano's detail. I agree that the Mehta recording is the best, and it's so good that I would send it to the outer galaxies as our opera offering. No other Turandot interests me, but Bjorling's Calaf is exceptional.
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