The Opera Rara label devotes itself to just what the name says, not only recording rare operas, but also mounting them in well-financed productions. They've excavated works that promise to reshape the operatic repertory some, and so it may be with this work by Ruggero Leoncavallo, which he preferred to the ubiquitous I Pagliacci. It offers a pure verismo story, featuring the titular character, a French music-hall singer who gets involved in a doomed affair with a married Parisian businessman. There is an extra level of ...
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The Opera Rara label devotes itself to just what the name says, not only recording rare operas, but also mounting them in well-financed productions. They've excavated works that promise to reshape the operatic repertory some, and so it may be with this work by Ruggero Leoncavallo, which he preferred to the ubiquitous I Pagliacci. It offers a pure verismo story, featuring the titular character, a French music-hall singer who gets involved in a doomed affair with a married Parisian businessman. There is an extra level of verismo involved: Leoncavallo himself worked in music halls as a young man, and the opera rolls along at a good clip in the first act with plenty of colorful atmosphere and music. Leoncavallo wrote the libretto himself. Zazą was a success at first, but has rarely been staged since the 1920s, probably because it makes substantial demands on its lead soprano both dramatically and technically. The good news here is that soprano Ermonela Jaho succeeds on both counts. Her voice...
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