Giuseppe Verdi - Piero Cappuccilli · Ileana Cotrubas · Placido Domingo · Elena Obraztsova · Nicolai Ghiaurov · Kurt Moll · Hanna Schwarz · Wiener Staatsopernchor · Wiener Philharmoniker · Carlo Maria Giulini – Rigoletto

This popular Rigoletto is excellent in almost every way.

Piero Cappuccilli is an ideal Rigoletto. Twenty years after his first recording for Giulini, his edgy-toned Masetto in the classic 1959 Don Giovanni, his voice has deepened and mellowed into a Verdi baritone of outstanding warmth, richness and power, with only a hint of a rough edge that adds character. And he offers a compelling characterization. A fairly dark one (this Rigoletto isn’t quite the gentle father that others are, but has a bit of a hair-trigger temper even toward Gilda), but one that still earns sympathy as he runs the role’s gamut of mockery, rage, tenderness, anguish and horror. As the man he serves yet despises, Plácido Domingo is an appropriately suave seducer, his rich, burnished tenor infusing the Duke’s music with a truly aristocratic sound. An equally shining presence is Ileana Cotrubas’s moving Gilda. Her bright, sweet, impeccably girlish soprano stands out beautifully against the otherwise darkly-shaded sound world, emphasizing Gilda’s status as the story’s one ray of pure goodness – an effect enhanced by her heartfelt vocal acting. A luxurious supporting cast, including Nicolai Ghiaurov’s black-jewel-timbred Sparafucile, Elena Obraztsova’s heavy-toned, passionate Maddalena, and Kurt Moll’s fearsomely rumbling Monterone, rounds out the performance.

This Rigoletto is one of those recordings that I’d recommend to any neophyte as an introduction to the work – and it’s a must for any established Verdi lover.

2CD with booklet

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