Il Pirata, for me one of Bellini’s most beautiful operas, is for many people nothing more than a title. Understandable, as it is rarely performed nowadays and (studio) recordings are scarce. Incomprehensible, because this opera is not only indescribably beautiful but also incredibly good!
Take the final scene alone: it is among the best Bellini ever wrote. You can already hear Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in it. And the opening chorus from the third act, “Che rechi tu”, can be found again, almost exactly the same, in Verdi’s Macbeth and Luisa Miller.
Until recently, I was only familiar with three studio recordings of the opera, featuring Montserrat Caballé, Maria Callas and Lucia Aliberti as Imogene. For convenience, I am not including the Saturday Matinee performance with Nelly Miricioiu, as it was never released (a shame!).
Carmen Giannattasio’s timbre is much lighter and less dramatic than Callas’s and much more rigid than Caballé’s, but if you do not think about their voices for a moment, you cannot help but admi tthat she has a lot to offer, especially in her mad scene.
I have more difficulties with the gentlemen. Ludovic Tézier is an excellent singer, but bel canto… no, his baritone is just not supple enough. In the parts where he has less coloratura to sing and can
simply be authoritative, he is nevertheless thoroughly convincing.
José Bros was once considered one of the most promising young bel canto singers of his generation, but he never really fulfilled that promise. He has excellent high notes and good coloratura, but his voice occasionally sounds constricted.
David Parry, one of today’s greatest bel canto specialists, conducts with great enthusiasm.
Whole opera with Montserrat Caballé:
Maria Callas sings “Oh! S’io potessi”:
And Happily, there is a YouTube recording of Nelly Miricioiu in Amsterdam!
Basia con fuoco 