 Esther Ofarim's voice is truly
a gift of God: pure, delicate and yet very strong. Esther started with her husband, Avi
and they were both known (and extremely popular) as "The Ofarim". That
was in the 60's. Then Esther sang alone, and left Isarel...for Germany where she became a
big star, singing in German or even English and Spanish, hosting television shows, etc.
Yet, her voice was never better exploited than when she sang in Hebrew. Hebrew let her
voice use a fuller spectrum and scale. In 1988, she returned to Israel for a series of
concerts. A friend of mine went to see her, but told me that he was somewhat disappointed
because her voice had changed... Later on, I had a chance to watch the videotape of one of
her concerts, and I must admit that my friend was not totally wrong... The good thing is
that all the CDs that are available are from the early years. Very recently, they also
released a set of two discs as a greatest hits.By the way, be very careful about her CDs,
because with the exception of the two noted here (and maybe the German and British
releases of her albums), the quality of the other Israeli CDs is VERY poor: basically,
they taped the vinyl and put it on CD... So, make sure you listen to the CDs before you
buy them to see if the scratches won't disturb you too much. |
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