I was fortunate to have seen Gencer as "Alceste" in the 1965 Rome Opera production. Her mastery of the Classical style combined with the spectacular vocal control and emotional involvement in her character are something I still remember vividly after more than 50 years.
GENCER fantastica.... voce meravigliosa, completa in tutti i registri.... interprete assoluta... l'ho sentita all'ARENA di VERONA negli anni 80 in AIDA.... ed era ancora nel pieno dei suoi mezzi di artista favolosa... una delle grandi della lirica mondiale... lascia un vuoto incolmabile.🙏🙏🙏
Amazing! I'm learning so much about Leyla Gencer. Thank you for these uploads! I'm not going to compare her with you-know-who because I think that wouldn't be fair to either of them. I'm looking forward to hearing as much of Ms. Gencer as I can find here on YT.
The full performance is brilliant. Veteran conductor Gui is equal to himself here: sympathetic to the singers, and respectful of the composer; one of the best italian opera conductors ever, with Tullio serafin. Gencer is in stupendous voice. Very little use of her chest voice is a proof of a more technical approach at this stage of her career. She builds on the satanic ease and beauty of the voice to charm the listener and then comes an accent that cuts through the music like a dagger.
ARTISTA MERAVIGLIIOSA che ho avuto la fortuna di ammirare all Arena di Verona come AIDA 1963 e 1966(quasi tutte le recite) e TROVATORE 1968.Una vera REGINA sempre
Mio Dio. Da brividi! Pelle d'oca continua. Lei meravigliosa di suo, ma questa interpretazione, di una classe superlativa, fuori dal comune ... La Gencer sfoggia nella voce una sensualità torbida, densa, femminile e ferale al massimo; questa insieme ad un erotismo profondo, insano ed avvolgente, da anima nera e dannata che mai ho sentito nella Lady. Una femme fatale inarrivabile. Ti senti felice, esaltato di perderti in lei, completamente, senza ritorno. Il povero Macbeth può solo ubbidirle sbavando, preso anima, cuore e gonadi. Azzardo che nemmeno la Callas, sebbene sfoggiando certe asprezze e durezze assolutamente perfette e filologiche (che avrebbero mandato in visibilio Verdi) riesce ad essere così meravigliosamente "femme fatale" invischiandoti a tal punto il cervello, i sensi e gli ormoni. La Callas ti dà margine per farti odiare e prendere le distanze dalle efferatezze della Lady, la Gencer non te lo permette, sei completamente in sua balia, arrapato senza scampo ed innamorato alla follia.
Basta con la Callas . Stiamo ascoltando Leyla Gencer . Lo dobbiamo Callas se le case discografiche hanno completamente ignorato un artista di queste capacità e bravura
@@agnespoma4877 C"è del vero in quello che lei dice ma non dobbiamo dimenticare che la Gencer ha avuto una carriera ben più lunga a che la Verdi Donizetti e Bellini renaissance erano cominciate. Purtroppo la pigrizia o prudenza di tante case discografiche ci ha privato di edizioni memorabili che fortunatamente esistono nei dischi pirata.
Maybe my favorite Macbeth (Taddei's marvelous too). I've the LP on RODOLPHE: some static/fuzz, but one can hear the details in the singing (Gencer's impeccable trills in the Brindisi(!), etc.). There's also a CD on LIVING STAGE, but with so much artificial reverb that details like the trills are lost. This RU-vid's better than any other. OperaDepot hasn't told us its source. Maybe it's the LIVING STAGE in a recent improved version? I just don't know. Only OperaDepot does :-(
Well! I've heard many a so-so transfer of this unsurpassed Gencer reading of this supremely difficult Verdi scena. But this one is a handsome dubbing job. Whatever the source, it's finer than any other I've yet heard. Please, is the whole Palermo performance with her and Taddei and Gui at the podium available in this fine sound? Thank you.
Strange that no one mentions the remarkable similarity, especially in this aria, with Callas. For a moment I thought it is Callas. I speak under correction, but was Gencer not a student of de Hildago as well?
Gencer studied with Arangi-Lombardi, who was a verismo singer. De Hidalgo lived in Istanbul and Gencer took lessons with her to improve her Bel Canto technique and style. Gencer had a very beautiful voice, but her low notes were not strong like Callas. A very good Lady Macbeth is Leonie Rysanek. Listen to the word "POTENZA", it has to be sung in mask or chest voice. Only Callas, Rysanek and Souliotis sing it properly. The others just lower the voice, so there is no contrast or enough of it.
@@mickyalexandru6894 Don't know what you mean by her low notes. Gencer had one of the strongest chest notes of any diva. And here are her other performances of this aria from 1965, 1969 and 1978 where she sings "Potenza" like you would like. She is aged 46, 50 and 59 respectively. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-35xrl5hC8vc.html&t=90 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IMeTibX_hyA.html&t=110 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-P3-rRE1PYCQ.html&t=96
I listened to the examples you sent me. Yes, these are low notes, but NOT chest voice. Listen to Souliotis, in the same aria or in La Gioconda, "Suicidio". THAT is chest voice. The same can be said about Callas in her first recording of La Gioconda, 1952. I like so much and am so glad, that there are still people, like you, to discuss these things. Today's singers seem to sing, but not to interpret. Most of them do not know or understand what they are singing at all.
@@mickyalexandru6894 yes their are low notes indeed ....Gencer was not only famous for here „voce di petto“ it was also very often criticized that she used chest voice frequently to have dramatic effects in here interpretations....but that was part of here concept of aproaching her characters.
Actually, Gencer was Callas understudy at La Scala. This drove her crazy. She pretended later in life, that EMI used her high notes in Macbeth to place them in the Callas pirate recording. With all her faults and pluses, we wish to have today such serious singers. Unfortunately, we DON'T !!!!!
If only Ms. Gencer had been available to substitute for Callas on the night of the notorious "Rome Walkout" in 1958! According to Callas, she warned the management of the Rome Opera House that she might not be able to make it through "Norma" because of her illness. Apparently the management said "Nobody understudies Callas!" and we all know what happened. There was a storm of controversy in the media of course, and the rest is history. [BTW, it seems that all over Rome there were unforeseen consequences. Those who came home two hours early found their spouse "in flagrante delicto" with a lover. On the other hand, there were those who returned after three hours talking about how wonderful the performance was, only to find out that the early ending had been reported on the radio, leaving them having to explain where they had been for the last three hours!]
