Beniamino Gigli: "Spirto Gentil" from La Favorita

I'm uploading this because it isn't on youtube yet.
Spirto Gentil ne' sogni miei
brillasti un dì, ma ti perdi,
fuggi dal cor, mentita speme,
larve d'amor, fuggite insieme
A te d'accanto del genitor
scordava il pianto, la patria, il ciel,
Donna sleal, in tanto amore
macchiasti il cor d'onta mortal

from Gaetano Donizetti's opera La Favorita

Category:

Music

Tags:

• opera
• Donizetti
• Beniamino
• Gigli
• La
• Favorita

[giriloti]

insuperabile

[Aetion]

Gigli always is a great lyric tenor. This aria, however, must be heard with Lauri-Volpi and Franco Corelli. I hate comparisons, but this one must be done.

[Kirill488]

Sung half-tone down!

[meltzerboy]

Caruso too was a tenore di grazia at the start of his career. But Gigli was always basically a lyric tenor rather than a spinto. Regardless of categories, this recording of the aria and Caruso's are I think the finest.

[operafan65]

This recording shows that Gigli was not so much the 'successor to Caruso' as he is so often called. Rather, he was the greatest of the tenore di grazia. To me, when he moved into the heavier repertoire, he lost that wonderful tone and ease that characterizes his magnificent singing in numbers like this Sprito gentil