 Enrico CarusoWith today's computer know-how, one can carry out this concept with infinitely more finesse and musicality, as the present release proves. What we have are some of Enrico Caruso's most famous and memorable sides, with the voice's overtones pretty much intact, minus the shellac surface noise. Likewise, the blatty orchestras are virtually rubbed out, replaced here in new performances by the Vienna Radio Symphony. It's amazing how accurately conductor Gottfried Rabl pinpoints accompaniments around Caruso's very personalized rubatos. The basic problem is that you don't get a tangible sense of Caruso's projection. Compare, for instance, the 1907 "Vesti la Giubba" from I Pagliacci (track 17) to its reconstituted counterpart (track 13). The unadulterated recording reveals the voice in proportion to the blatty orchestra in a finite space, with no dial twiddling or body miking to beef things up. In the new version, voice and orchestra are miraculously matched, yet don't blend. Still, a release like this will surely instigate Enrico Caruso awareness among budding opera fans, just as Ted Turner's colorized films make classic movies palatable to viewers allergic to black and white. --Jed Distler |
