Product: Donizetti - La Favorita (1971)
Rating: 3.0
Donny Zetty Strikes Again (and Out)
La Favorita will never be one of my favorites, but it has its moments...a few anyway.This was a 1971 production in Tokyo. The dancers and chorus were Japanese, which caused some trouble in choruses such as "A lei son plesso alfine!" which tended to come out as "A ray sor plesso arfeeney." But nevermind that. The production as a whole and the opera itself were rather awful...summoning up every opra cliche and staged ineptly. (I was tempted to go back through the whole thing and list all the blunders, much as I once did for Florence Foster Jenkins, but I decided not to.)So why buy the DVD? Because I heard the same production on Notre Dame's art-music radio station. Radio compliments the work as one doesn't have to watch the awful staging and acting and the libretto doesn't matter. BUT the voices of the principals got my attention. Four folks in terrific form: Soprano Florenza Cossotto, whom I had never heard of but who had a lovely, creamy voice. A relatively young Alfredo Kraus at the peak of his lyric abilities. In equally fine voice, Sesto Bruscantini and Ruggero Raimondi, who was much later to do a wonderful Figaro in "The Marriage of Same."Some high points worth revisiting. Alfonso's "De' nemici tuoi lo sdegno" from Act II. Leonora's "O Mio Fernando" and the flanking tunes, which got Cossotto a LONG ovation. Fernando's "Spirto gentil, de' sogni miei" from Act IV, maybe the only aria from this opera that shows up from time to time in recitals and anthologies. The tail of the last act, where Leonora and Fernando exchange loud pleasantries before she drops dead. Happily, all this stuff on the DVD is numbered so one can dial in what one wishes to reprise without listening to and watching the intervening nonsense.Bo Kerrihard