In the 1970s Claudio Abbado arguably was the finest Verdi conductor around, and this set, live from La Scala early in 1978, is a fine souvenir of that greatness. He leads an exciting, musically suave reading of this opera, and his cast doesn’t hurt either: Luciano Pavarotti at his most gleaming and interested; the always troublesome Mara Zampieri (she sometimes sounds like a crazy boy soprano on steroids) singing with great feeling and nuance, albeit with her weird voice; Piero Cappuccilli as an enraged Renato; and Elena Obratsova chestily throwing Ulrica’s music around. The rest of the cast is terrific too–each minor player with a profile of his and her own. This is a real find. As an appendix, Bella Voce includes the second-act love duet, taped the year before, with Pavarotti and Shirley Verrett. [7/7/2000]
