Nelly Music:

		List Price: $15.93		Label: RCA Salesrank: 99833 Released: September 17, 1996
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Puccini: Turandot Reviews:
One of the three best studio Turandot's out there!
2009-10-23 - This and the Nilsson/Corelli/Scotto and Pavarotti/Sutherland/Caballe Turandot recordings are probably the three best recordings of this opera. Some might include Callas but aside for Schwarzkopf and Callas that recording has very little going for it.

I think fans of Turandot should own all three recordings as they are all classic in their own way but the advantages this recording has are many. First Erich Leinsdorf gives a HIGHLY underrated reading of the score. Though the orchestra does not sound as grand as the other two recordings, it is a clearer, more dramatic, and better paced reading then either F. Molinari-Pradelli(who is pretty darn good) and Zubin Mehta, who is the most overrated conductor of this opera there is.

The leads of Nilsson, Bjoerling, and Tebaldi are not in their best voice. Nilsson is great in this role no matter where I've heard her, though she is a little better with Corelli, and she has nothing to complain about here. Bjoerling as Calaf isn't as heroic and powerful as Corelli or as beautiful as Pavarotti, but neither of those two tenors puts both beauty and power together like Bjoerling does. A great singing actor even if a little past his prime. After hearing Caballe do it, I feel there is only one Liu but I like Tebaldi better in the role than Scotto or Schwarzkopf or Olivero. The latter two are wonderful sopranos but lack all of Liu's softness and innocence.

Giorgio Tozzi as Timur was a big surprise. It isn't a huge role but he makes the uttermost of it. The Ping, Pang, and Pong trio of Mario Sereni, Piero de Palma and Tommaso Frascati have great chemistry which is the most essential ingredient to these roles and for me can make or break a Turandot recording.

I still think the other two recordings are as good, but not better than this. For the price of the Pavarotti/Sutherland/Caballe set you could buy BOTH this and the Nilsson/Corelli/Scotto set and choose between them. I wish all of life's decisions were this tough ;)

N O Contest
2008-11-23 - After forty years of listening to this recording, I have yet to hear a performance that matches this one.

The Turandot for all time
2006-11-22 - This recording review should be considered under the caveat or "disclaimer" that Bjoerling is my favorite tenor of all time - and this recording of Turandot is one of his last, and I believe his crowning achievement in the recording studio. (Mind you - I love Di Stefano's, Pavarotti's, Gedda's, Wunderlich's voices as well as those of many other singers . . . but in my estimation, none equal Bjoerling for his mixture of musicianship coupled with vocal power and splendor. His vocal placement and tone produced either the ringing brilliance or ravishing lyrical tenderness that the music needed. This, along with the variety of repertoire and overall sense of musical line are in a word unrivalled in my experience. Truly Bjoerling's was the voice of the century! (And Tebaldi and Milanov will probably always remain my favorite operatic sopranos for much the same reasons listed pertaining to Bjoerling.)

Puccini being my favorite opera composer and Turandot being my favorite opera are probably the inevitable results of my having in my youth heard Bjoerling, Tebaldi, Milanov, and Tozzi wrap their magnificent God-given voices around the beautiful musical lines that Puccini penned within that score. (Bjoerling's Butterly, Boheme, and Tosca remain close seconds for me.)

Though many may find the story within this opera to be hoakey, I find Turandot telling the age old story of how great love can melt even the coldest of hearts.

These things having been said - I must try to highlight some of the additional reasons that this Turandot recording has always been altogether amazing to me. When first listening to it as a teenager on LP, I was struck by the intensity of the music rendered by both the voices and the orchestra. (Leinsdorf seemed to have been a highly under-rated opera conductor.) Over the years I've procured two different recordings of it on CD (wanting the "Living Stereo" recording of it because of the wonderful sonics that they've always provided).

Nilsson's voice carries an icey-cold grandeur to it. (And isn't that exactly what is called for in the role of the princess Turandot - after all, how can someone having anything other than a heart of ice sit or stand by watching the execution of those who have failed to solve your riddles?)

In Tebaldi's portrayal of Liu, her voice reflects the great care that was taken by this un-presumptuous and meek servant character to not openly declare her deep love for Calaf. It is a wonderful thing indeed to actually be able to FEEL all that expressed in the singing.

Calaf's father Timur played by Tozzi (though only having few moments of vocal expression) is timeless in his evidencing a deep concern for his son's well-being, and his sense of what is in Liu's heart.

Ping, Pang, and Pong are excellent in their chiding vocal parlay with each other and Calaf.

And Calaf himself as rendered by Bjoerling cannot even be imagined as vocally more perfect. He is the epitomy of one who is stricken and ardently in love with one who cannot reciprocate because of all that personally inhibits and binds them emotionally from expressing like passion in return.

If there were a capacity of giving 25 stars in this review - I would do so unhesitatingly. I emphatically consider this recording as essential for all who truly love great singing!

The top recording of Turandot!
2005-09-30 - This is a digital remastering of the classic recording of Turandot made in 1959, starring Birgit Nilsson, Renata Tebaldi, Giorgio Tozzi and Jussi Bjorling with the Rome Opera orchestra and chorus conducted by Erich Leinsdorf.There are many other recordings of Turandot, but none even comes close to this performance in the sheer power and magnificence of the sound or in the persuasiveness of the musical and dramatic interpretation. Nilsson and Tebaldi are at the top of their form, even Bjorling was having a good day or however long it took to make the recording. Listen to all recordings, if you will, but I predict you will buy this one in the end!

Classic Turandot
2005-04-22 - Though this recording is generally highly rated, the ease and arrogance with which a few reviewers have dismissed this historic performance leave one perplexed and saddened, wondering if perhaps Amazon's customer rating system is such a great thing after all.

Granted, the technology behind this early stereo recording is often less than exemplary, and the various LP pressings and CD issues have varied in quality. The current reissue seems as good as we are likely to get any time soon.

Despite these shortcoming, I really do wonder if some of the less than enthusiastic reviewers really understand what they are hearing when they hear these voices.

Certainly we have a wealth of great voices today, but there is no denying that with our global community, voices are beginning to sound more and more the same. This recording documents a different era, when regions and nations produced a unique sound.

This recording is a living testament to a time when Scandanavian voices (Nilsson and Bjoerling) rang free and open-throated with a particular brilliance in the upper register; when Italian sopranos (Tebaldi)sang with an exciting blend of Italianate bite and Mediterranean warmth and hue; when sopranos often produced pianissimos not by a mere reduction in volume, but by producing an uncanny, disembodied tone that floated. Listen to the confrontation between Turandot and Liu near the end of the opera to hear Tebaldi and Nilsson both produce this striking sound. The soft, warm tones seem suspended in space. Milanov could produce this sound; so could Caballe.

For this performance I can only feel gratitude. No one can objectively say that these roles have been performed better by other singers. We are the beneficiaries of these great artists who, during the hot Roman summer of 1959, not only left behind an unsurpassed performance of this great work, but who also preserved on disc one of the greatest tributes to a great era of singing--an era that can only accrue in legend with each passing year.