Il trovatore - Leonora's Scene, sung by Sondra Radvanovsky (2005, Houston)

Leonora's scene (Sam giunti... D'amor sull'ali rosee... Misere... Tu vedrai che amore in terra) from Act IV of Giuseppe Verdi, sung by the wonderful Sondra Radvanovsky. Her voice is not for everyone, but it is clear that she is nevertheless a very special singer, with a big yet unforced voice, superb top notes, wonderful breath and dynamic control, and good flexibility, considering the size of her voice; today's best Verdi soprano. Leonora is her signature rule. Unfortunately, recordings rarely capture the beautiful sheen/overtones of the voice, and tend to accentuate the less attractive features of her singing (namely, instances of off-pitch singing in the middle-upper passagio). I feel that this recording, while not perfectly representative of her voice, is the most adequate that I've heard. (NOTE: some of the overtones were unfortunately lost due to YouTube compression of the sound.)

This is from January 21, 2005 performance with the Houston Grand Opera. Marcello Giordani sings his debut performance as Manrico, and Patrick Summers conducts.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Sondra
• Radvanovsky
• Soprano
• Giuseppe
• Verdi
• Trovatore
• Leonora
• D'amor
• sull'ali
• rosee
• Misere
• Tu
• vedrai
• che
• amore
• in
• terra
• Italian
• Opera
• Classical
• Music
• 2005
• Aria
• Cabaletta
• Act
• IV
• Marcello
• Giordani
• Patrick
• Summers
• Houston
• Grand

[semiramide1945]

I can't understand why she was given this role at the Met. Are there no other competent Verdi sopranos around anymore. She emotes for sure, but I'd rather hear focused singing and not squally high notes like here. I saw her do Lucrezia Borgia where she was marginally better than Fleming ( I won't even get started about that lady- I made the mistake of criticizing Netrebko's Bolena and lived to regret it ) Ernesto Vasselli

[htshoward]

Uh, I have heard her sound much better on this aria. This is not a good performance. Strained, and the high notes are not good.