Di Stefano Sings Neapolitan Songs

De Stefano sings here with more musicianship than the latter and a more robust voice than the former. Dino Olivieri, who likes swirling strings and problematic counterpoints, contrives occasionally with Di Stefano to enact musically something in total contradiction to the words. My favorite songs here – I’ tu vurria vasà – depicts the singer lying beside his beloved at dawn and hesitating even to kiss her lest it wake her. What we hear is a performance that so loud as to suggest something that might lift the roof off the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth. My other gripe concerns the balance engineering. It is of the “zoom lens” type, evening out all the dynamic changes in Di Stefano’s singing so that everything is heard at a steady forte volume throughout.

If this is one of your favorite singers, you’ll want to have this CD, but if you love listening to these perennial favorite songs, which always start in a minor key and then switch to the tonic major key half way through each verse, then try versions by other singers.