Manon Lescaut Comp Live

I rank this set very high. In my opinion Muti, La Scala choir and orchestra performed excellent. Muti and his La Scala choir and orchestra do this Manon Lescaut with passion and warmth in this LIVE version from La Scala, Milan and Muti is in my opinion a very good, solid (Italian) conductor (famous).

Jose Cura is one of the great singers in our time, in the tradition of Domingo, and he show us why he is a great singer after a couple of minutes.

Maria Guleghina sings almost nearly perfect and she really shines like a superstar in act four.

The others have some small minors sometimes but also some great moments and I focus on that (the minors dont ruin this opera as they sometimes do in other records).

This is a LIVE set but coughs and so on occurs only a couple of times. You could sometimes imagine footsteps and so on (stage noises) but that is something giving you a, in this case a charming live feeling.

Beutiful sound and a very nice, informative libretto booklet, make this set a must have for Puccini fans.

Guleghina skillfully sings "in quelle trine morbide" as well as the most of the other parts of the opera while Cura performs a moving Des Grieux. He really has a rich, dark and enchanting tenor voice. None of them ever rivals the legendary 1954 ((P)1960) recording of the roles with Renata Tebaldi and Mario del Monaco but will anyone? It's perhaps useless to seek successors of such grand interpreters and it's much better to enjoy what the new generation, the new era has to offer us. Both Cura and Guleghina have a bright future in front of them and surely deserve it too! This is an important recording of Puccini's masterpiece that is worth buying.

This recording is taken from live performances at La Scala in 1998. Muti's conducting is really excellent, capturing the broad sweep of the work and much of the detail. However, the set's main attraction is its leading couple. Jose Cura and Maria Guleghina look wonderful in the accompanying photographs - it's hard to imagine a better looking soprano and tenor able to sing these roles today. Guleghina is hardly a natural coquette, which means that Acts 1 and 2 suffer a little (her request for the hair curlers sounds decidedly Tosca-like) but what a vibrant and exciting voice this is! Some flat high Bs aside, she brings to Manon's arching phrases a real Puccinian "lift" and spares nothing in the last act monologue. The effect of her singing in the theatre must have been overwhelming. Cura, too, gives his considerable all. His voice, dark, woody undertones and all, sounds at times like the answer to everyone's prayers for a new Domingo - yet he infuriates too with moments of tightness and loss of support. But in his duets with Guleghina - and particularly in the last act - he is absolutely splendid. Lucio Gallo is suitably sleazy as Manon's brother, bringing verbal piquancy and burnished sound to the Act 2 duet; the supporting cast is admirable.

The set has stiff competition - Freni and Pavarotti (with Bartoli, no less, as the madrigal singer!), and Te Kanawa and Carreras, to name but two. For the frisson of live performance, and for sheer electricity, however, it is very much worth having - an admirable addition to any Puccini collection.