I'm pleased for him... he didn't deserve to be booed, no matter what his reaction to it was after was.

True, though I am still convinced that his true Fach is French romantic opera - I don't think he's really cut out for the heavy Italian repertoire.

Having said that, I haven't heard him for years.  I've got a ticket for his Barbican recital next May, though he still hasn't announced what he is actually going to be singing.  I do hope it turns out to be marginally more satisfying than the overpriced recital last season by his other half, which was "Programme TBA" until the 11th hour, and eventually turned out to be a concert of dull repertoire standards with only 20 minutes in total of Gheorghiu, with the rest of the programme filled in by the orchestra.

Reiner, I agree. One of the best exponents of Radames, Jussi Bjorling, considered himself a spinto, and first sang the role in his mid 20s. There is a recording of him available in Act One of the opera in Stockholm in 1940, and it is wonderful singing from a man that clearly understood the role and his vocal capacities relative to it. He only sang Calaf and was preparing for Otello (plus Lohengrin and Stolzing) as he approached his 50s.

Aside from the nonsense that surrounds him, Alagna has a basic weight of voice that allows him to sing Radames and Manrico (another spinto role that if often associated with heavier voices), and that might gain the weight for Otello and other heavier roles as he moves into his 50s. Interesting that (as far as I know), he has never yet sung Les Troyens though...

That's exactly what they are   And no harder to play, either.

There are very few of those "straight" trumpets around these days,  and I think they were mostly manufactured in the first half of the C20th,  when the bore-diameter of all brass instruments was significantly smaller?   I had one myself for a while, found very battered and bent in a junkshop, which I repaired and got back to playing condition - so I've played-around with them a bit.  My one was narrow-bore, with very clunky simple-system* valves.  As we're used to hearing the "fat" sound of post-WW2 trumpets these days (with bore-diameters around 40% larger) the old instruments do sound a bit "whiney" by comparison...  maybe this is the difference you noticed?  (Another nuance for nit-pickers is that most of these straight trumpets were made in the days of "Old Philharmonic" pitch, and consequently play around a quarter-tone sharp of today's A=440 - unless they've been adapted with some extra tubing. Their unique "straight" design didn't allow for the tuning-slide found on conventional instruments, so they're hard to bring down to modern pitch otherwise).  I think they might still be in production for the military, for ceremonial events?  I've seen American military bands using straight D-trumpets for public events....  the tubing is a bit shorter and you can just about play on the march with it, whereas the standard Bb straight trumpets are too unwieldy to do anything more than play "on the spot".

I have no idea what kind of trumpets Verdi actually wanted at the premiere?  I somehow suspect it was done with normal trumpets, but with actors on stage using some suitably outrageous-looking props   Since brass-players on stage rarely make any attempt to act at all, this might actually be the optimum solution anyhow

*ie one-piece valves with the spring just sitting underneath them in the chamber to return them to position.

Entirely agreed   I think I mentioned earlier (perhaps it was in this thread or somewhere like it) that I've staged a touring "workshop" production of the opera (which we rather provocatively called "Amneris") with just five performers.  There is, however, a point to the crowd scenes (there's rarely anything "surplus" in Verdi's work), that war isn't a question of which "side" wins...  you can end up even leading the "winning" side whilst still losing everything you have.

One of the formative experiences in my life which helped when staging the piece happened at a party I'd gone to at someone's house somewhere in Muswell Hill.  Among the guests were some friends of mine, a young Anglo-Serbian couple, with the girl being the Serbian one. For some reason during the evening, someone wanted to see the late news on BBC-2, so the tv was turned on... to show pictures of the RAF bombing Belgrade.  Someone near the back of the room (who presumably didn't know the girl's nationality) cried out "Go on, lads, give the bastards hell!".  My friends were shortly seen leaving in a taxi, in a state of extreme distress. "Ritorna vincitor" indeed     It's the contemperaneous relevance of his work that keeps me coming back to Verdi.   

Hurrah!  I'm getting really excited now about seeing ENO's Aida this evening.  I don't really know quite WHY I'm so excited, other than not having seen Aida for ages (and NEVER having seen a really good one), suspecting it'll be the first decent new ENO production this season, having friends in the cast I'm really looking forward to catching up with... oh yes, there are enough reasons there

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah.

(Apologies for overuse of the word "hurrah".  I've just realised how many of my opera posts begin with it )

(Edited to add: and reading back over this thread, I note that harpy's booked in for tonight as well... if you fancy saying hello, I would imagine that my friend and I will be heading for a pint in - appropriately - the Harp, after the show.)