Title : Caruso 2000
Author : Verdi, Giuseppe
Release Date : 20000208
Binding : Audio CD
Regular Price : $17.98
Amazon.com Price : $16.49
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Editorial Reviews : The idea behind Caruso 2000 is actually not new. In the early '30s, RCA rerecorded some of the legendary tenor's acoustic recordings with newly added orchestral accompaniments, to rather crude results. With today's computer know-how, one can carry out this concept with infinitely more finesse and musicality, as the present release proves. What we have are some of Caruso's most famous and memorable sides, with the voice's overtones pretty much intact, minus the shellac surface noise. Likewise, the blatty orchestras are virtually rubbed out, replaced here in new performances by the Vienna Radio Symphony. It's amazing how accurately conductor Gottfried Rabl pinpoints accompaniments around Caruso's very personalized rubatos. In fact, Rabl sometimes anticipates the singer's special effects rather than reacts to them. The basic problem is that you don't get a tangible sense of Caruso's projection. Compare, for instance, the 1907 'Vesti la Giubba' from I Pagliacci (track 17) to its reconstituted counterpart (track 13). The unadulterated recording reveals the voice in proportion to the blatty orchestra in a finite space, with no dial twiddling or body miking to beef things up. In the new version, voice and orchestra are miraculously matched, yet don't blend. A vocalist will normally adjust his or her voice to the environment, but singers can't do such things when they're dead. Still, a release like this will surely instigate Caruso awareness among budding opera fans, just as Ted Turner's colorized films make classic movies palatable to viewers allergic to black and white.
Buyer Reviews : This Caruso 2000 CD is a great effort to show us what The Great Caruso actually sounded like. Unfortunately no modern creations can really fix the old recordings and give us what He really sounded like; BUT, if you suspend your disbelief, just a little bit, this is not bad at all; and in fact is quit good. All the pops and static in the orgnakl recording is completely gone, its very clean in that regard, the vocals still sound like they were recorded mono, but with this clearer recording you can get glimpses of how great Caruso was. For example on Vesti la Giubba Caruso's vocal power is fantastic; as well as on just about every other selections hear (Great choice of song's). I give this CD a 5 for effort, and for being the best Caruso collection I have ever heard. I only wish we could go back in time with Digital recording equipment and record Caruso, then we would all know if he really was the greatest or not. But, I will tell you this, even with the mono sounding vocals hear, if he was not the best, he sure was one of them, the power and emotion are still evident even without being recorded by modern technology.
