This is a thoroughly idiomatic, exciting performance of Trovatore, one influenced rather ferociously by the verismo movement. As usual Lorenzo Molajoli and the Scala forces have the score totally in hand, and while observing all the cuts that were traditional at the time, still manage to delight and deliver Verdi’s music in a manner that would thrill his audiences and, I’d like to think, would please the Master himself. Bianca Scacciati, as Leonora, is so exciting, extroverted, and stylistically and rhythmically right, with such great top notes, that it’s almost hard to notice she’s singing badly part of the time, with a squally, unappealing sound. Francesco Merli, the Manrico, is a master of sweet singing and knows his Verdi; that sweet singing only occasionally turns into mannerism. He’s got the oomph for “Di quella pira” (taken down a half tone, the transposition coming right on the heels of the little duet after “Ah, si ben mio” rather than after the words “Suo figlio” as is common today) and elsewhere he sounds as if he really cares as well.
Giuseppina Zinetti, as mama Azucena, is nice and chesty and very involved, but hers is not a quality sound. On the other hand, Enrico Molinari’s di Luna is gorgeous Verdi singing, though he’s slightly detached, and Corrado Zambelli’s Ferrando is sloppy. The bonus tracks are good documents: a wonderful Lombardi trio, a nice, rarely heard duet from Marchetti’s Ruy Blas, the reason why Il Guarany is rarely performed, and some thrilling moments from Catalani’s Loreley. At this price, this set is good fun–but hardly the Trovatore to end Trovatores.
