Mirella Freni - Puccini: Madama Butterfly - Highlights (1989)

Sinopoli's objective becomes more and more evident as the opera proceeds: to redefine as tragedy what is still often seen as a pathetic but sentimental anecdote. The cast is a fine one, with Berganza one of the best Suzukis on record and Pons a concerned and sympathetic Sharpless. Freni is in fuller voice than for Karaján, the timbre a shade less pure, but she is still a deeply affecting and expressive Butterfly, seizing all the chances Sinopoli gives her to intensify the pathos of her role, never taxed by his slow pace. Carreras is in better voice than in many recent recordings and gives a decent interpretation of what now seems a basically decent character whose flaw is unimaginative insensitivity... Sinopoli's creative infidelity to the letter of the text in favour of what he sees as its essentially tragic spirit will be far too idiosyncratic for some tastes, but every Puccinian should hear it-every anti Puccinian, come to that-and many, I suspect, will be won over by its gripping eloquence.