Gomes Lo Schiavo

[Alan Howe]

...forthcoming from Dynamic, conducted by the excellent John Neschling, who gave us the same composer's Il Guarany:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/lo-schiavo/hnum/9426749

[Mark Thomas]

Gomes is an underrated composer, his operas are certainly derivative of middle-period Verdi, but none the worse for that. This is, potentially, good news.

[Kevin]

Wow. I've just recently been looking for a recording of this. It's considered his masterpiece, hope it lives up to the hype.

[Alan Howe]

It'll all depend on how well sung it is...

[Kevin]

Of course 

[Ebubu]

It's probably worth mentioning that this production will be issued on CD, as well as on DVD and Blu-Ray.

[Alan Howe]

I'll have the CDs.

[Alan Howe]

Lovely opera. Terrible tenor. More anon...

[Mark Thomas]

Maybe so, I don't know yet, but my current recording of this fine work was released years ago by an obscure Brazilian label and is a live performance in atrocious sound, so anything will likely be an improvement.

[Alan Howe]

Oh, I'll be buying this, but it'll be partly spoilt by the poor casting for sure. Typical, I'm afraid, of second-tier Italian operatic recordings - and not a patch on the fine recording of Il Guarany.

[Mark Thomas]

Indeed. But then, very few recordings of unsung operas are unfortunately.

[Kevin]

In my opinion we are very fortunate to get these recordings of unsung/obscure operas bad tenors or no.

[Mark Thomas]

Yes, I tend to agree, but obviously it would be preferable for the performers to up to scratch. That said, it doesn't seem to be a problem confined to obscure operas. There are plenty of mainstream performances with below-par principals. 

[Kevin]

Yes standards are not what they used to be. We have to accept that we are not living in the golden age(era) of classical recordings any more, nor will we ever see one again.

[Alan Howe]

Still, some recordings are pretty 'golden', though not often in the field of opera these days. Standards of vocal coaching have sadly declined: we can't even match the recordings of the 70s and 80s, let alone those of earlier periods.