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Title: Lacks Viennese Echtlichkeit
Review: Do buy this record. The arias are lovely; several of them (such as the delightful one by Tauber) are new to me and I'll bet to many of you as well. Hampson is in excellent voice, and his German is beautifully enunciated. All the expected gimicks of the operetta signer are there: the portamento, the half-voice, the wistful sighs.But . . . (Is't there always one?)Something's missing. If nothing else, call it a native feel for Viennese sensibility. Ten minutes with Tauber or Huesch or even Gedda leave this disk in the dust. The gimicks, as I called them, become attachments not true mannerisms such as we would expect from someone more truly at home in this Fach. (The late-lamented Schwarzkopf springs most readily to mind.)But don't let these partly negative words deter you from purchase. You'll have a good time with this CD.
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