Sicilienne
The Cast

PHILIP II - Joseph Rouleau
DON CARLOS - Andre Turp
RODRIGUE -
Robert Savoie
THE GRAND INQUISITOR
- Richard Van Allan
A MONK - Robert Lloyd
ELISABETH DE VALOIS
- Edith Tremblay
PRINCESS EBOLI
- Michelle Vilma
THIBAULT - Gillian Knight
LE COMTE DE LERME
- Emile Belcourt
A ROYAL HERALD
- Geoffrey Shovelton
A VOICE FROM HEAVEN
- Prudence Lloyd

BBC Singers
BBC Concert Orchestra
CONDUCTOR
- John Matheson
Opera

‘This invaluable historical document has been available on CD before, but now joins Opera Rara’s sumptuously packaged Verdi series… The booklet, thick enough to render the ‘let’ redundant, includes the libretto in four languages plus the detailed scenario for the ballet, with pictures of the historical personages, and of both the original and the present singers... Listening to the performance is continuously fascinating. The revisions, both big and small, that the composer made later are all to the good, especially to the crucial Philippe-Posa duet.
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Gramophone

'This completes Opera Rara's invaluable issues of Verdi's operas, broadcast on Radio 3 in the 1970s. In some ways it is the most important: it comes closest to what Verdi had in mind for his extended masterpiece... All the cast seem wholly dedicated.
I heard the Carlos, André Turp, often at Covent Garden but he did nothing better than his portrayal of the sorely tested and unhappy Infante. His voice full of emotional plangency, his well crafted phrasing and the sheer passion of his delivery make him ideal. As the tormented, dictatorial Philippe, Joseph Rouleau also surpasses himself vocally and dramatically, so we are at once angered by his tyrannical ways and saddened by his inner misery... Edith Tremblay is a gloriously committed Elisabeth... Her singing, especially of her big Act 5 solo, is full of natural, true feeling. The Eboli of Michèle Vilma is also a reading to treasure, replete with all the equivocal feelings of that erring character and sung with gratifying confidence. Richard Van Allen, the sole 'foreigner' in a main part, commands the French language and, with Rouleau as antagonist, makes the scene of the Grand Inquisitor and King, the clash of church and state, the riveting confrontation it should be.'
As for the cuts, the 'Prélude and Introduction’ with its keynote acciaccatura is essential if the Fontainebleau act is to make sense: Elizabeth’s hushed ‘Oui’ should be, and is, an epic moment, but it isn’t when shorn of its dramatic context... But Verdi’s new prelude to the third act is very beautiful indeed. Decisions, decisions... Any reservations pale beside the set’s importance as archive material and the proof, as if any were still needed, that Don Carlos is unarguably a French opera to a very good French libretto.’