Vittorio Grigolo: The Italian Tenor

Grigolo/ Teatro Regio Orchestra Parma/ Morandi

4 / 5

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  1. Buy the CD
  2. Download as MP3
  3. Italian Tenor
  4. Vittorio Grigolo
  5. Sony Classics
  1. 2010

Vittorio Grigolo is best known to UK audiences as the handsome tenor who stole the show from Anna Netrebko in the Royal Opera's production of Manon, and then made an insidiously attractive Duke in the recent live telecast of Verdi's Rigoletto from Mantua. His new recital disc presents a cross-section of arias, familiar and otherwise, by Verdi, Puccini and Donizetti. Not all of them ideally suit him, and you sometimes have to take the rough with the smooth. He's notably good at scamps, such as Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi, or tragic wits such as Riccardo in Un Ballo in Maschera, where you get a real sense of the laughter behind the passion. There are moments of wonderfully rapt introspection, too, in arias from Donizetti's La Favorita and Puccini's Le Villi. At times, however, you're aware that the sound is a bit too small for some of his material. To his credit, he never forces his voice in an attempt to beef up tone or volume. But he's not a natural Cavaradossi, and while he's strikingly subtle as mother-fixated Manrico in Il Trovatore, you also miss the thrill of a bigger voice powering its way though Di Quella Pira with consummate ease.

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