Word: nicolai
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov (Bass Martti Talvela, Tenor Nicolai Gedda, Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, Jerzy Semkow conductor, Angel; 4 LPs). At long last, here is the Boris Godunov that Mussorgsky actually wrote. For too many years the work was heard in the brilliant, often gaudy revision of Rimsky-Korsakov, who in the guise of correcting a friend's mistakes dispelled much of Mussorgsky's haunting, earthy musical originality. This new recording measures up to both the music and the debt owed Mussorgsky. Martti Talvela is rich of voice (less a black bass than a walnut) and unforgettable...
...Scala opened with Macbeth, considered one of its best new productions. Typically, the company offered a cast of Italian and non-Italian singers, notably Italy's Piero Cappuccilli as Macbeth, the U.S.'s Shirley Verrett as Lady Macbeth and Bulgaria's Nicolai Ghiaurov as Banquo. On the podium was Claudio Abbado, the company's former music director who, at 43, is a conductor of international stature. The production was conceived and staged by Italy's Giorgio Strehler (see box). For Strehler, it was one of three moments in the spotlight. His staging of Figaro...
...Hurok Concerts, is regarded as a sound businessman. His abilities as a starmaker in the Hurok tradition are less well known. Despite the recent depletion of its talent roster, Hurok Concerts still handles a respectable array of artists, including Van Cliburn, Sviatoslav Richter, Henryk Szeryng, Nathan Milstein, Janet Baker, Nicolai Gedda and Artur Rubinstein. One of the joys of the new Shaw-Hurok liaison, said Shaw last week, is that now Guitarist Bream and Mezzo Baker can give joint recitals in the U.S., as they have in England. One of the things wrong with the business-most music managers being...
...Stage Director John Dexter eliminated a half-hour's worth of ballet (wisely, considering the Met's declivity for dance) and edited the work down to three acts, running a relatively tidy 3½ hours. Then there were the principal singers: Sopra no Montserrat Caballe, Tenor Nicolai Gedda, Baritone Sherrill Milnes, Bass Justino Diaz. They constituted the kind of front-rank cast that the company does not regularly assemble these days. Nor does the Met orchestra play every day with the snap and precision that it gave Conductor Levine...
Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust, with Nicolai Gedda, Jules Bastin, Josephine Veasey (London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Colin Davis conducting; Philips; 3 LPs; $20.94). This work exists on one of the composer's loftier plateaus of the mind rather than on a workable theatrical level. Thus Damnation is in many ways especially well suited to armchair listening. Continuing his masterly unprecedented series devoted to Berlioz's major works, Davis again conducts with suave professionalism and lightning-like flashes of insight and revelation...