ARMIDE –Christoph Willibald Gluck
Bologna (Italy) 1984 - Incontestable success and incontestable Kabaivanska
“The personage of Gluck’s sorceress Armide requires also an extraordinary personality. What Callas used to be to Rossini is what Kabaivanska is to Gluck. She is Armide above all with her enchanting presence on the stage, troubling and authoritative. Her wonderful aria “Le perfide Renaud”, when the curtains fall down at the end, will remain in our memories. This Armide is always before our eyes, being at the same time a heroine born of mythology, and a woman in love, fooled in a turmoil of emotions, which Kabaivanska interprets beautifully. Her Armide’s greatest conquest is not the seduction of Renaud but the fact that she succeeded in adopting Gluck’s style with such truthfulness and authority, and with a voice capable of both reciting the text (in French!) and following the rules of singing, taking constant care of timbre and stylistic nuances. With this combination, Kabaivanska reaches perhaps one of the peaks in her career.”
Sergio Segalini
Opéra International
“GLUCK’S ARMIDE CASTS A SPELL - … where the singers took the spectacle in hand the interpretation was raised to an excellent level. The vocal cast was very good, Raina Kabaivanska’s tragic stature imposing itself, the applause full of enthusiasm for the interpreters, and especially for her.”
DUILIO COURIR
Il Corriere della Sera