A recording of Verdi’s Otello by Andrea Bocelli has been uploaded onto Apple Music and clips are beginning to float around.
Fancy a lick?
Click here.
Two more releases are reportedly planned – Lucia di Lammermoor and La forza del destino.
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No, grazie. Don’t fancy a lick.
Fraud. Nothing but. About the other collaborators (and opportunists), for shame.
I’m sure someone somewhere will love it…
There are few signs of the apocalypse, but surely Bocelli singing Otello has to be one of them.
This man has as much business seeing Othello as Celine Dion I don’t get it what is he trying to prove Even if he had a true operatic lyric tetera you don’t sing Othello it killed Pavarotti’s force and you can compare his voice with you know who
I’m enthusiastic about this recording, particularly Steven Mercurio’s conducting is very good.
It isn´t
Enjoy the Mr. Bocelli’s wooble. One could drive a Mack truck through it…
No tension and way to slow, probably to suit the 5th class “tenor” I assume. I only listened to a bit and gave up. Particularly since I recently sampled my various Domingo recordings in DVD.
“The critic’s duty is to report that Mr. Bocelli is not a very good singer. The tone is rasping, thin and, in general, poorly supported. Even the most modest upward movement thins it even more, signaling what appears to be the onset of strangulation.
To his credit, Mr. Bocelli sings mostly in tune. But his phrasing tends toward carelessness and rhythmic jumble, and the little barks and husky vocal expletives that are the mother’s milk of Italian tenordom sound faded and unconvincing. The diction is not clear.”
BERNARD HOLLAND — 17 years ago
“Bocelli, widely celebrated for crossover endeavours, made no concessions to easy listening. He didn’t even use a microphone. Leniently accompanied by Vincenzo Scalera, he ventured some ornate Handel and noble Beethoven in addition to romantic indulgences of Wagner, Liszt and Strauss. Then he added introspective mélodies of Fauré and Gounod. Everything sounded pretty much the same.
He wrapped his pinched, slender, nasal tone around each entry with obvious care. He sustained some sweet diminuendi, technique willing and pitch variances notwithstanding. He sometimes held onto final cadences as if sheer endurance assured victory. Even at his limited best, however, he seemed to be singing by rote, neither text nor meaning internalized.”
MARTIN BERNHEIMER — 12 years ago
At one time the music world knew what to do with an “almost operatic” voice such as this, and some very nice careers resulted. I could mention David Whitfield and Gordon MacRae. Now there seems to be nowhere else but actual opera to assign it to, so I cannot entirely blame Bocelli for doing what he does with his pleasant voice.
But …
Having written that on Bocelli’s behalf, it is also true that many unquestionably “real” — even great — operatic tenors knew better than to take on Otello, however much they might have loved the music.
Just a quick reply Even Franco Corelli wouldn’t touch the role Even though at one time he said he made a mistake
Thank heavens he can’t read!!!
Two word: hard pass.
His intonation is flat on the high notes at the end. Boring sound and no feeling behind it.
Dreadful.
He appeared in Houston several years ago. I didn’t play the concert but friends of mine did. He lip synched the entire concert. The excuse given was….he has a big concert tomorrow somewhere else so he has to save his voice. Additionally the conductor told the orchestra….this next piece, your parts are in the wrong key so you can either transpose it in your head or just mime along with the recording. So for that number, the audience was paying to watch an entire stage of musicians pretending.
Years ago, before the record industry was dying, we had a joke among friends in the theater,
Decca/London’s newset “sensational” Turandot recording, with Cecilia Bartoli as the Ice Princess,
Juan Diego Flórez as Calaf, Andreas Scholl as Liù, and Plácebo Flamingo as Timur, with the Florentine Consort Il Giardino Appassito (“The Faded Garden”) under Elio Katzendarmer.
People, that was only an innocent joke. But we are getting there! Oh, we are getting there !!
I’ve always regarded Bocelli as possessing a very pleasant, mellifluous voice more suited to operetta than opera. Some of his songs are charming and very well executed, but an operatic tenor he most definitely is not.
Mario Lanza, Gordon MacRae; these two very fine singers found a niche for themselves and remained successful within that. This takes nothing away from their considerable vocal prowess. MacRae could act too, which helped! Lanza was an unfortunate victim of the (Joe) Pasternak unit at MGM.
Horrible….Why do you post this travesty?
Tristan must be around the corner.
Domingo had sung 67 other roles before he even considered tackling Otello. It’s one of the most difficult in the repertoire. Who on earth would even consider Bocelli’s quasi-operatic voice used almost exclusively to belting it out in huge arenas even a fraction capable of singing this role with any degree of accuracy to say nothing of drama and subtlety? Madness! But given his popularity outside the world of opera lovers, no doubt it is a PR stunt that may bring millions into someone’s coffers.
Francesco Tamagno, you have met your match!
Like the rest of the world, I eagerly await the release of the new album: “Bocelli Sings the Best of Joseph Green”!
Bravo it seems like we have a new Mario Del Monaco we no longer I have to worry about having a great hotel lol I mean otello lol!!!!!!