Puccini Le Villi Renata Scotto Placido Domingo Leo Nucci Tito Gobbi As the Narrator Ambrosian Opera Chorus National Philharmonic Orchestra Lorin Maazel Conductor

Puccini's first opera has elements of the naive about it but as soon as the heroine, Anna, begins her first aria, you know that the composer's distinctive musical voice was up and running his first time out of the gate. He was devoted as much to orchestral music as to opera at this stage in his development with the result that the work is full of attractive and dramatic interludes. The plot is essentially the same as the ballet Giselle (and related to Dvorak's Russalka) in something like the form of a French opera-ballet.The recorded sound is good but just a bit dull and lacking in immediacy. The cast is top of the line and performs the work very beautifully.

Being one of the only first Puccini's opera recordings coming from "the golden era" (actually it's end), it for sure deserves special interest."Le Villi" is not a masterpiece of the composer whose later works proved his geniality, but how can we resist learning the first step of the genius? Anyway the music is excellent - something resembling Verdi, something - Donizetti, and something not surprisingly Puccini himself. :-)The 3 men singing in this recording could not be better. Placido Domingo is at his ultimate best here - nothing but perfection. Young Leo Nucci also provides excellent performance and much more full and fresh voice than what we get from his mature career years. As a special prize we get Tito Gobbi 2 expressive recitatives in the interlude - one of the last recordings of the great Master...Lorin Maazel with National Philharmonic provides one of Lorin's natural passionate and refined performances which is sheer beaty and pure enjoyment.The only spoiler (for me) is Renata Scotto. Far past her prime, but still full of "diva" ambitions, her performance here is full of her usual mannerisms and artificial expression, which shamefully come together with totally wobbling and annoying top (starting from top A), which ruins a lot in her solo (Anna's romance) and duets with fabulous Placido. Such a pity they could not choose another soprano of real quality for this rare recording...Still overall the recording has much to offer, and I warmly recommend it.The sound is very good (recorded in 1979).The booklet comes with notes in English, German and French and full libretto in all these languages + Italian.

Alright, it's not the best story. In fact the story is lame, but it's pure Puccini. This and Edgar need to be performed at The Met.

fantastic

Puccini's first opera 'Le Villi', even in the revised version recorded here, bears all the marks of having been rushed in a few months for a competition deadline (he lost), and being based on a sloppy, almost comically inept libretto. As 'Suor Angelica' would later prove, the supernatural never suited Puccini's prosaic temperament (although, effectively, the ghost of the dead heroine here inspires ghostly remembrances of the earlier part of the score); the eerie atmosphere the Villi (restless spirits of women who died before marriage, revenging themselves by dancing their faithless men to death) should evoke is botched by abrupt plotting; and the climax, in which the anti-hero Roberto is chased in a ballet by furious spirits, after a 'Tannhauser'-like reunion scene, verges on the ridiculous.What saves this opera is its intimations of future greatness; the epic, orchestrally rich melodies synonymous with Puccini; the communal, dancing jubilation that opens the work, anticipating the heady second act of 'La Boheme'; the gloomy funeral dirge looking to the famous 'Intermezzo' of 'Manon Lescaut'; the plot about a woman abandoned by a fickle man, and an extraordinary, extended love duet hinting at 'Madama Butterfly'. further, the bulk of Act 2 is taken up with an amazing, long, broken series of anguished arias by Roberto, lamenting his moral weakness, the loss of his betrothed and communal warmth, and the intolerable weight of remorse figured ironically in the wispy sprites tormenting him.With this cast - Renata Scotto, a superbly harried Placido Domingo, a sardonic Tito Gobbi as Narrator - could make a radio jingle sound emotionally overwhelming; with Loren Maazel creating great gusts with his orchestra, this flawed but promising little work is a must-have.

Puccini’s Le Villi is an early work, to be sure, but still a great one containing some marvelous music. It will probably never enter the standard repertoire – for that, it is dramatically too weak, and not all of the scoring (in particular) is up to the standards of Puccini’s later operas. There are even passages that are clumsy, derivative (Meyerbeer, Verdi and Wagner) or fairly conventional. Still, the music is often characteristically Puccini, with many of the touches and lots of the atmosphere of his later works. So, yes – it’s his weakest opera, but probably way better than the majority of operas composed around the same time, and a must for any fan of the composer. The Act 1 aria for Anna, for instance, is as good as anything he ever wrote.It needs at least one first-rate recording, at it gets one here. Renata Scotto is generally wonderful – a bit hard in the top register, perhaps, but with plenty of beauty and characterization. Domingo is as dependable as ever, and Leo Nucci is simply fabulous. As a bonus we even get Tito Gobbi as the narrator, a role he dispatches with apparent relish (though it is hardly a particularly effective dramatic move on Puccini’s part). Lorin Maazel directs the National Philharmonic Orchestra with conviction, and manages to generate momentum and beauty, though he doesn’t always, it seems, try to help the composer out where his scoring becomes a bit dense – though it’s not really a serious complaint. Perhaps the sound quality, too, is lacking a bit of presence, but this is not a serious complaint. In any case, the caveats are too minor to award this disc anything less than a top rating.

if you buy Puccini-Tutte le Opere $97.53 you will have this one (and all the others)