If I were to use one word to describe this performance of Il Trovatore from the Met, it would be aggressive. The house was in a high state of excitement as, a few days earlier, Price and Corelli had made their extremely successful house debuts in these same roles to fantastic acclaim, and the audience is ready with its applause from the get-go. The pace is fast and furious, especially in the choruses, which results in them occasionally becoming unstuck.
The singing too is extremely competitive, with little room for subtlety. I don’t know whether it is the recording, or the transfer but the soloists seem to be closely miked, which picks up a vibrato in Price’s voice I hadn’t been aware of before, and for much of the performance she sounds to me as if she is forcing her essentially lyric instrument. Corelli was never the most subtle of artists, but the general air of competitiveness encourages him to belt out his high notes for all he is worth and, it has to be said, the audience go wild for him.
This generally aggressive atmosphere extends to the other soloists too, who, in any case, are less vocally entitled than Price and Corelli. Irene Dalis is perfectly acceptable, and you’d go a long way to hear her like today, but she is honestly second rung, as is Mario Sereni. They are no match for Giulietta Simionato and Ettore Bastianini, who appear on another live recording from the following year, which also features Price and Corelli. This was from the 1962 summer Salzburg Festival, and is no less exciting, but is conducted much more stylishly by Herbert von Karajan. It was enthusiastically reviewed by Simon Thompson, when first issued and is still available from DG as a download, though the CDs have been withdrawn. If you want Price and Corelli in this opera, then it is definitely the one to go for, and Price sounds glorious here and much more relaxed than she was at the Met. With Simionato, arguably the greatest Azucena of her age and Bastianini in fantastic form, this is a set that should be in every Verdi lovers collection.
No doubt others will just get caught up in the excitement of the performance under review from the Met, but I’m afraid I found it rather vulgar, for which the blame should be left squarely on the shoulders of Fausto Cleva, who, time and again, mistakes speed for excitement.
My preference for the opera would still be Karajan’s first studio recording with Callas a non pareil of a Leonora, but the live Salzburg recording is almost as good, if without the precision of the studio one, with all the principals, including Price and Corelli, in fabulous voice. Truly that one was the night to remember.
La principessa Turandot – Birgit Nilsson (soprano) Calaf – Franco Corelli (tenor) Liù – Licia Albanese (soprano) Ping – Frank Guarrera (baritone) Pang – Robert Nagy (tenor) Pong – Charles Anthony (tenor) Timur: Ezio Flagello (bass) L’imperatore Altoum – Alessio De Paolis (tenor) Un mandarino – Calvin Marsh (baritone) Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera/Kurt Adler rec. live radio broadcast, 24 February 1962, Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, USA
Well, let’s get this straight. This is an exciting performance of Puccini’s last opera, which puts you in a good seat at the old Metropolitan Opera House on a night when two of its greatest stars were singing two of their greatest roles. You can sense the excitement in the house from the moment the radio announcer, Milton Cross, introduces the opera with the words, “We’ll have the loud, crashing chords, then the curtain will open on the walls of the oriental Imperial palace of Peking.” Indeed the set is loudly applauded by the audience.
After the excitement of those opening chords and the chorus which follows, it is something of a disappointment to be confronted with the Liu of Licia Albanese, who was approaching 53, but quite frankly sounds even older. She compensates by loudly over-singing and over-emoting, and I derived very little pleasure from her performance. Her days at the Met were evidently numbered and she left the company in 1966, following a dispute with Sir Rudolf Bing.
For the rest, we have a sonorous Timur from Ezio Flagello, but the Ping, Pang and Pong tend to over-characterise their music and consequently I found their scenes irritating, as I often do.
However, the main reason for hearing this set remains the splendid singing of Nilsson and, especially Corelli. I am not one of those who think Corelli can do no wrong, but in the right role, and Calaf is undoubtedly the right role for him, he is unbeatable. First of all, there is the sheer splendour of that sound, the thrill of his top notes, which he can fine down to almost a whisper in places. He is absolutely thrilling and the audience go wild after Nessun dorma, with Adler abruptly stopping the orchestral postlude until the pandemonium has died down.
So too, of course, is Nilsson, throwing out those top notes like laser beams. The punishing tessitura holds no terrors for her at all and it is all very exciting, if not particularly subtle. Nor is the conducting of Kurt Adler, for that matter, but he certainly knows how to whip up the excitement.
According to Lee Denham in his exhaustive survey of the opera, there are, or have been, available seven other recordings featuring Nilsson, three of them with Corelli, so how necessary is this particular recording? I’m pleased to have heard it, but I’m not sure I’d want it as my one representation of Nilsson and Corelli in the opera. For that, I’d probably stick with the EMI recording under Molinari-Pradelli, which also has the benefit of including the Act III aria Del primo pianto, which is omitted from all Nilsson’s live accounts. It also has the benefit of the young Renata Scotto as Liu.
I would also not want to be without the Mehta recording with Sutherland, Pavarotti and Caballé, nor the Serafin with Callas, Fernandi and Schwarzkopf, but this one is a great reminder of a thrilling afternoon at the old Met.
I see from Wolf-Ferrari’s Wikpedia page that he composed no less than fifteen operas, though they have been rarely performed, and only one of them, Il segreto di Susanna, has been recorded with any frequency. Indeed, this live performance is one of five recordings at present listed on the Presto website, whilst a sixth, and perhaps most famous recording, featuring Renata Scotto and Renato Bruson under Sir John Pritchard, is no longer available.
The plot is slight and concerns the Count Gil, who suspects his wife, the Countess Susanna of having an affair, when in fact she is simply a secret smoker. All ends happily when he finally discovers the truth, and he joins his wife in enjoying a cigarette. I suppose you would say that it is not particularly politically correct these days, but it is harmless enough and the music is enjoyably tuneful, in fact in places gloriously, swirlingly lyrical and romantic. I enjoyed it immensely.
The present performance, which credits even the silent character of the servant, Sante, evidently stems from a live performance in June 2022, and there is occasional stage noise and laughter from the audience, who are otherwise remarkably well-behaved. The sound is excellent, and Felix Krieger sets the scene brilliantly with the beautifully played short Sinfonia. The first voice we hear is that of the baritone, Omar Montanari. He has a nice, lyrical instrument and characterises well as the Count, who vacillates between suspicion and devotion to his young wife. She is played by Lidia Fridman, a Russian soprano active in Italy, with an attractive, soft-grained voice. Between them, under Krieger’s expert baton, they present a nicely paced and vividly characterised performance of the piece.
However, curiosity led me to stream a 1976 Decca recording under Lamberto Gardelli, featuring Bernd Weikl and Maria Chiara as the Count and Countess, which is available as a download, and which turns out to be more vivid still. I then turned to a Scotto recital I have, which included a couple of excerpts from the Pritchard set on Sony, which were even better, and would suggest that it is definitely due a re-issue.
In its absence, if you want the opera on CD, then the present issue will do very nicely. Unfortunately, as is the general practice these days, no libretto is included, though we do get a brief synopsis of the plot.
Ten years ago I saw Saimir Pirgu as the Duke in the Royal Opera House’s David McVicar production of Rigoletto. Though he looked splendid and dashing, he was utterly charmless and I found his singing stiff and monochromatic. Since then, he seems to have ventured into more dramatic repertoire, and this recital of mostly verismo arias comes as a follow-up to a 2015 album of more lyrical fare, which I haven’t heard.
The present recital was very well received by my colleague, Göran Forsling in October of last year (review) but I’m afraid I can’t join in with his praise. For a start, Pirgu’s basic production is terribly ingolata, so much so that his singing was giving me a sore throat. There is no freedom to the sound and, when I compare him to the greats of the past, from Caruso to Björling to Pavarotti, all I hear is his struggle to get the sound out. There is no ring at the top and the middle voice is forced, resulting in a distressing vibrato. Indeed, he sounds a good deal older than his forty-two years.
Added to that, he doesn’t really do anything with the music and here his conductor, Antonio Fogliani, must take some of the blame, for his conducting is dull and prosaic. Most of the arias on the disc are well known but, with so many other versions out there, this just isn’t competitive.
I tried listening to the recital several times, thinking that maybe it had something to do with my mood, but, no, each time my reactions were the same. I just couldn’t get past Pirgu’s basic vocal production and I found it difficult to relax and enjoy the music. I hate to be so negative, but this is a disc for fans of Pirgu only, if indeed they exist.
Contents.
Puccini: Manon Lescaut – “Indietro!… Guardate, pazzo son” 2. Puccini: Tosca – “E lucevan le stelle” 3. Leoncavallo: Chatterton – “Non saria meglio… Tu sola a me” 4. Giordano: Andrea Chénier – “Colpito qui m’avete… Un dì all’azzurro spazio” 5. Puccini: Le villi – “Ecco la casa… Torna ai felici dì” 6. Puccini: Manon Lescaut – “Donna non vidi mai” 7. Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur – “L’anima ho stanca” 8. Wagner: Lohengrin – “In fernem Land” 9. Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust – “Nature immense” 10. Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin – “Introduction” 11. Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin – “Kuda, kuda, kuda vi udalilis” 12. Puccini: Il tabarro – “Hai ben ragione” 13. Bizet: Carmen – “La fleur que tu m’avais jetée” 14. Puccini: Turandot – “Non piangere, Liù” 15. Jakova: Skenderbeu – “Kjo zemra ime” 16. Puccini: Tosca – “Recondita armonia” (with Vito Maria Brunetti (bass)) 17. Giordano: Andrea Chénier – “Come un bel dì di maggio” 18. Puccini: Madama Butterfly – “Addio, fiorito asil” 19. Giordano: Fedora – “Amor ti vieta” 20. Sorozábal: La taberna del puerto – “No puede ser” 21. Puccini: Turandot – “Nessun dorma!”
Schön ist die Welt was the last in a series of Lehár’s operettas that were premiered in Berlin. Paganini, had met with a somewhat lukewarm reception in Vienna, but had triumphed in Berlin in 1926 , due to the participation of Richard Tauber, and thereafter Lehár wrote the majority of his operettas for Berlin with Tauber in mind for the leading role. Not that Shön ist die Welt, which premiered in 1930, was an entirely new work, it being a re-working of an earlier operetta, Endlich allein, originally performed twelve years earlier, the second act of which Lehár had been particularly proud, as it was more or less through composed with minimal dialogue. This second act, with the addition of a Tauber-lied, is pretty much lifted from the earlier operetta, but the outer acts underwent substantial revisions.
The action takes place in the Swiss Alps, where Crown Prince Georg arrives at an Alpine resort to meet for the first time his fiancée, Princess Elisabeth. However, on the way he stopped to help a girl, whose name he did not discover, mend a puncture and fell madly in love with her. He announces to his father that he will not marry Elisabeth because he loves another. All turns out well when our unwitting hero and heroine go on a hike and get trapped by an avalanche at an Alpine hut and have to spend the night together. Returning the hotel the next morning, Georg discovers that the girl he helped with the puncture is in fact Princess Elisabeth. There is also a sub plot involving Count Sascha and a Brazilian dancer, called Mercedes della Rossa, which gives Lehár the excuse for some Latin American influenced music in the first and third acts. It’s all pretty insubstantial, but it does give rise to some gloriously lyrical music, especially in the second act, which involves just the two leads.The present recording would seem to derive form stage performances as we hear occasional stage noise, though there is precious little sign of any audience. There was a previous recording, also on CPO, (review), which I see is still available as a download. That was on a single CD, but included none of the dialogue, whereas here we get quite a lot of it, which could prove tedious for all but fluent German speakers, and even they could find it a little too much for repeated listening.That said, the sound is excellent and the playing of the Franz Lehár Orchestra under Marius Burkert most stylish. I also enjoyed the contributions of Katharina Linhard and Jonathan Hartzendorf as the secondary couple, and of Jospeh Terterian as the Jazz Singer. Where I had a problem was with the contributions of the two leads. Thomas Blondelle as Crown Prince Georg has a pleasing light tenor, but he is no Richard Tauber and he is not really up to the operatic demands of Act II. Nor is Sieglinde Feldhofer as the Princess Elisabeth. She has rather too much vibrato for my taste and tends to lunge at her high notes. I couldn’t help thinking what a difference a Schwarzkopf or a Rothenberger would have made. Elena Mosuc and Zoran Todorovich who sing the roles of Elisabeth and Georg on the other CPO recording I mentioned above, improve on the present two, but they, rather confusingly, sing the secondary couple as well, so there is no doubt that this present recoding is more cohesive.
Nor would I like to give the impression that I didn’t enjoy the set. I did. Very much indeed, despite the less than stellar contributions of the two main leads. Lehár was such a prolific tunesmith, some of the songs were rattling around in my head for days afterwards. It gets a qualified recommendation from me.
Prinzessin Elisabeth – Sieglinde Feldhofer (soprano)
Kronprinz Georg – Thomas Blondelle (tenor)
Der König – Gerd Vogel (baritone)
Mercedes della Rizza – Katharina Linhard (soprano)
Graf Sascha Karlowitz – Jonathan Hartzendorf (tenor)
Herzogin Maria Brankenhorst – Klára Vincze (soprano)
The Pristine XR remaster gives us the chance to reappraise a set which is slightly controversial in that it captures Callas in late career with occasional flaps on top notes. Nonetheless it was Ralph Moore’s overall top choice in his opera survey and he had no problem recommending it when he reviewed this Pristine issue in July of this year (review).
For my part, I’ve known the set for over sixty years now. It was actually the first opera set I ever owned, and, for quite a few months, the only opera set I owned, so I got to know it pretty well. Since then of course, I have heard a fair amount of other Normas, Sutherland, Caballé, Scotto, Sills, Eaglen, Bartoli (please, never again), Sass live at Covent Garden (disastrous) and plenty more by Callas herself; the live 1952 Covent Garden, the 1954 studio, the 1955 Rome broadcast and, best of all, the live 1955 La Scala, as well as excerpts from many others, right up to her final performances in the role in Paris in 1964.
So how does it hold up? Well, pretty well actually. Sonically, it was always pretty good, and, if I’m honest, I can’t hear that much difference between the most recent Warner version and the Pristine version. Perhaps there is a bit more space around the voices in the Pristine version, but it is the difference is slight.
As for Callas’s voice, it is true, notes above the stave have taken on a metallic edge, and they don’t always fall easily on the ear, but the middle and lower timbres have a newfound beauty, and a characterisation that was always complex and multi-faceted has taken on an even greater depth, parts of it voiced more movingly here than anywhere else.
There are other gains too. The cast here is a vast improvement on the earlier studio one, Corelli in particular being a shining presence. Fillipeschi was a liability on the earlier set, but, whilst not quite a paragon, and chary of some of the coloratura in his role (Serafin making a further cut in the great In mia man duet to accommodate his lack of flexibility), Corelli’s is a notable presence, and his clarion voice is ample compensation. Zaccaria may be less authoritative than the woolly voiced Rossi-Lemeni, but his tones are distinctly more buttery. Ludwig is an unexpected piece of casting, but she too is an improvement on Stignani, who, great singer though she was, was beginning to sound a bit over the hill by the time of the first Callas recording (she was 50 to Callas’s 30). Ludwig sounds, as she should, like the younger woman. Her coloratura isn’t always as accurate as one would like, certainly no match for Callas, but she sings most sympathetically in duet with her older colleague, and Mira o Norma is, for me, one of the greatest performances on disc. After Ludwig states the main theme, Callas comes in quietly almost imperceptibly and at a slightly slower tempo with an unbearably moving Ah perche, perche, her voice taking on a disembodied pathetic beauty. When Ludwig joins her for the section in thirds, she perfectly matches Callas’s tone on her first note, before Callas joins her in harmony, a real example of artists listening to each other in a sense of true collaboration.
One should I suppose mention the losses from the earlier recording. Yes, some of Callas’s top notes are shrill, and we lose some of the barnstorming heroics that were a part of Callas’s Norma right up to 1955. This Norma is more feminine, more vulnerable, if you like. How much this had to do with interpretive development, and how much with declining vocal resources is a moot point, but there is no doubt Callas is still a great singer, doing the best she can with what she has. Some sections are more moving here than in any of her other performances. I’ve already singled out Mira o Norma but the earlier duet is its equal, with Callas wistfully recalling her own awakening to first love.
The beginning of Act II always brought out the best in her, and here she is sublime. Dormono entrambi is an unusual piece which alternates passages of recitative with arioso, rather like Rigoletto’s Pari siamo. Callas draws on all the colours in her palette to express Norma’s contrasting emotions. You can almost feel the chill that comes over her at un gel me prende e in fronte si solleva il crin followed by the choked emotion of I figli uccidi! The arioso of Teneri figli is couched in a tone of infinite, poignant sadness, but then her tone hardens with her resolve at Di Pollion son figli, before, with a cry she drops the knife (and we can almost hear the precise moment), crying out Ah no, son miei figli! Operatic singing and acting on the highest level.
Serafin’s conducting is much as it was in the first set. He has the virtue of not conducting the opera as if it were Verdi, as so many do. Sometimes I’d like him to get a move on a bit, but his pacing of the final two duets (one in public, one in private) is superb, and he perfectly judges the climaxes in the Grand Finale, one of the greatest in all opera.
I wouldn’t want to be without Callas’s 1955 live La Scala account (also available from Pristine) with Del Monaco and Simionato, which is where voice and art find their greatest equilibrium, but for a studio set, this is now clearly the one to go for. One thing is for sure, Callas remains the quintessential Norma. No singer has yet challenged her hegemony in the role.
This Pristine XR Remastering of De Los Angeles’ second 1959 recording of Madama Butterfly has already been favourably reviewed twice before on MusicWeb International, once by Ralph Moore (review) and once by Morgan Burroughs (review), and I can add little to what they have said. We have De Los Angeles in one of her best and most conducive roles and Björling singing with golden tone. In Pristine’s newly re-mastered transfer of the stereo original, surely this is self-recommending, and who am I to disagree? However, I should mention that there is an earlier 1955 De Los Angeles recording, in mono sound, with Di Stefano as Pinkerton, Gobbi as Sharpless and conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni, which, in some ways, surpasses the performance we have here. It is available at super bargain price from the Regis label and was favourably reviewed by Christopher Howell here.
That earlier recording’s chief asset is the conductor, Gavazzeni, who makes far more of the score than the rather dull and prosaic Santini, and it makes me realise how important the role of the conductor is in Puccini. Indeed, all the best sets have benefited from a great conductor; Karajan, for both Callas and Freni, Serafin for Tebaldi, Barbirolli for Scotto and Pappano for Gheorghiu. And, if Santini has at his disposal an excellent cast, Gavazzeni’s is just as good, and in some respects even better. Björling, for Santini, sings with golden tone, but is just a trifle stiff. This was to be Björling’s last recording, and the heart condition, which would end his life at the early age of 49, was already apparent. Indeed, he collapsed during one recording session of the Act I love duet and needed several days to recover before he was able to continue. This could account for his relative stiffness. Di Stefano, on the other hand creates a real character. Carelessly charming in his exchanges with Sharpless and genuinely seductive in the love duet, he is suitably devastated by what he has done in the last act. I don’t see Pinkerton as a villain or an out and out cad. He is just an impulsive young man, who gives little thought to his actions at the beginning of the opera. Young men like him are ten a penny on any American college campus and Di Stefano portrays him to the life.
Sereni is a sympathetic Sharpless for Santini, but Gobbi, for Gavazzeni, surpasses him in verbal acuity and De Los Angeles is in slightly fresher voice in the earlier recording, though the difference is marginal.
What is not in doubt is the improved sound picture in the later stereo recording, especially in Pristine’s remastering, which opens up the sound quite a bit. I should also mention that Pristine as usual provide downloads of the full score and libretto, whereas the Regis issue of the earlier recording just comes with notes and a synopsis. Whichever version you go for, you will get one of the most touching Butterflies on disc.
A photo of Jussi Björling graces the cover of this Pristine issue, and he is without doubt the main reason to hear these recordings. It is always a pleasure to hear his beautiful voice, musical phrasing and ringing top notes, though I’m not sure he would ever have been perfectly cast in either role. But before coming to Björling himself, it might be instructive to consider other elements of the recordings.
Both operas were recorded in 1953 in New York with the RCA Victor Orchestra and the Robert Shaw Chorale under Renato Cellini and sound remarkably good in these Pristine transfers, so good, I almost thought they were in stereo. I hadn’t heard either performance before, so I have nothing to compare the Pristine transfers to, but they are admirably clear and spacious and a good deal better than the contemporaneous Serafin recordings with Di Stefano and Callas. The Serafin Pagliacci is in reasonable mono sound, but unfortunately the Cavalleria Rusticana suffers from overload and distortion, which no amount of re-mastering would seem to be able to overcome. Still, I wish that these Cellini performances were half as exciting.
Cellini’s conducting is at least idiomatic, his tempi well chosen, but neither opera really catches fire and they both remain somewhat studio bound. The professional Robert Shaw Chorale sing in both operas. They are faultless in execution, but I couldn’t help picturing them all in prim white shirts and blouses, standing, score in hand, in choir banks. They don’t for one second conjure up the sound of lusty Sicilian peasants or excited Italian village folk. The La Scala Chorus on the Serafin set, may not be so polished, but they have this music in their blood and are much more convincing.
I suppose I should preface my discussion of the solo singers with a confession that I have never much liked Zinka Milanov, or at least not on any of the recordings I have heard, which were all made quite late in her career. From the outset she sounds far too mature, almost indistinguishable from Mamma Lucia in her initial exchanges and completely uninvolved in poor Santuzza’s plight. Björling, who could sometimes be accused of being a little cool, is at his most impassioned in their duet, but she remains phlegmatic and stolid. She is no better in the duet with Robert Merrill’s Alfio, who, in any case, is a bit too jovial and avuncular. Björling’s Turiddu is beautifully sung and, as I mentioned, he does try to inject some passion into his exchanges with Santuzza, but there is something about the inherent nobility in his tone that makes him not quite right for the caddish Turiddu. As always, his singing gives great pleasure, but I can’t quite believe in him.
That said, I find his Turiddu more convincing than his Canio. Yet again, the role is beautifully sung, Vesti la giubba heart-breaking and deeply felt, but can anyone really believe that this is a man who would be driven to double murder? I certainly can’t. I have much the same problem with the Nedda of Victoria De Los Angeles. She is in her best voice, warm and feminine and, like Björling, has the virtue of always being supremely musical. She sings quite beautifully, especially in her Ballatella, but, as with her Carmen, she sounds altogether too ladylike. I don’t necessarily want Nedda to be portrayed as a heartless minx, as was often the case in days gone by, but I need to believe that she has the mettle to defy a bully of a husband and have an affair behind his back.
Nor is there any menace in the Tonio of Leonard Warren, who, in the prologue, could be singing about anything at all really. Gobbi, on the Serafin set, does not have such a beautiful voice, nor such easy top notes, but he makes every word tell. Merrill has here been given the secondary role of Silvio, but his Silvio doesn’t sound much different from his Alfio. Compare Panerai, who sings both roles on the Serafin recordings, utterly menacing as Alfio and ardently seductive as Silvio.
Jussi Björling was, without doubt, one of the greatest tenors of the last century and I always take pleasure in the sheer beauty of his voice, his musical phrasing and his wonderfully free and ringing top notes, so it was a pleasure to hear him here, even if these two roles are not ones to which I think he was really suited. For the rest I derived the most pleasure from De Los Angeles’s beautiful and musical singing as Nedda, even if she too is caught in a role that was not particularly suited to her gifts.
Not a top choice for either of these two operas then. For all that they are in better sound than Serafin’s recordings of the two operas, I would still place the Serafin performances ahead of them. Di Stefano can be a bit wayward, but he is better at expressing the caddish side to Turiddu and the unhinged side of Canio that turns him into a killer. Callas is, as usual, hors concours, both as a wonderfully impassioned Santuzza and a free-spirited and mettlesome Nedda, and she is in fine voice on both recordings. Gobbi is equally brilliant as Tonio and their confrontation bristles with drama. There are also better choices amongst more recent recordings, such as Karajan’s sumptuously recorded La Scala set for DG, which no doubt remains a first choice for many.
As always, Pristine should be commended for including with the CDs a package of downloadable items, which includes a copy of the same recording as an MP3 download, together with full scores, both piano and orchestral, and a full libretto in PDF format. Most major companies these days don’t even include an online link to a libretto.
Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945) Cavalleria Rusticana (1890) Turiddu: Jussi Björling (tenor) Santuzza: Zinka Milanov (soprano) Alfio: Robert Merrill Mamma Lucia: Margaret Roggero (mezzo) Lola: Carol Smith (mezzo)
Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857-1919) Pagliacci (1892) Canio: Jussi Björling (tenor) Nedda: Victoria De Los Angeles (soprano) Tonio: Leonard Warren (baritone) Silvio: Robert Merrill (baritone) Beppe: Paul Franke (tenor
Robert Shaw Chorale RCA Victor Orchestra/Renato Cellini Rec. 1953, Manhattan Centre, New York Full scores and libretto included as downloads Pristine Audio PACO209 (2 CDs 141)
Premiered in 1815, Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra was the first of nine operas Rossini wrote for the San Carlo, Naples. It is based on a play by Carlo Federice, which in turn had been based on a novel by Sophia Lee, called The Recess. Dealing with Elisabeth’s leniency in forgiving Leicester and his secret wife Matilde, it is highly probable that its subject was also meant to celebrate Ferdinand IV, who had recently returned from exile and his ‘leniency’ in not carrying out reprisals against his renegade subjects. At the premiere the roles of Elisabetta and Leicester were sung by Isabella Colbran and Andrea Nozzari, with the role of the villainous Norfolc (sic) going to Manuel Garcia, who would later go on to create the role of Lindoro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. As is usual with Rossini, there were a lot of self-borrowings in the score. Much of it is from Sigismondo and some from Aureliano in Palmira, including the overture, which would eventually find it’s permanent home as the overture to Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Rosina’s Una voce poco fa in that opera is also a re-working of Elisabetta’s entrance aria.
The opera was a huge success at the time, but, like most of Rossini’s serious operas, fell out of the repertoire until the bel canto revival of the second half of the last century precipitated a spate of revivals. The present set derives from performances in 2021 in Kraków, Poland and at the Wildbad Rossini festival in Bad Wildbad. However much a rarity on stage, the opera is well represented in the catalogue. We have a 1976 Philips recording, featuring Montserrat Caballé and José Carreras, which was based on performances at the Aix-en-Provence festival and there is also a recording on Opera Rara, with Jennifer Larmore and Bruce Ford, a performance which is absolutely note-complete, though in fact only runs a few minutes longer than the Philips. I haven’t heard the Opera Rara set, nor a live one featuring Leyla Gencer, but I used to own the Philips set on LP and re-listened to some of it on Spotify before writing this review.
Unfortunately, this Naxos set is nothing to write home about. The Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus can’t compare to the Ambrosian Singers and the London Symphony Orchestra and Antonio Fogliani whizzes through the score, as if he can’t wait to get it over with. Given what we hear on stage, one can hardly blame him. There is very little of tonal beauty or real vocal accomplishment to be heard. At no point do any of the soloists rival those on the Philips set, where Caballé is in fine voice and has all the grandeur the role of Elisabetta requires. She is in a completely different class from the efficient, but dull Serena Farnocchia, who plays Elisabetta on Naxos. Then on Philips we have the young Carreras. He may not get round the notes quite as easily as Patrick Kabongo, but there is the compensation of the sheer beauty of his voice at that time. Kabongo’s voice becomes thin and wiry as he goes above the stave. That said, Kabongo’s Leicester is at least acceptable but Mert Süngü’s Norfolc is not. I know the character is extremely unpleasant, but I’m not sure he needs to sound so awful. Ugo Benelli on Philips is much better.
As Matilde, Philips have the lovely Valerie Masterson, who had played the role in Aix, her bright, light, lyric soprano contrasting well with Caballé’s richer more refulgent tones. You could never mistake one for the other, whereas the voices of Farnocchia and Veronica Marini, who plays Matilde on the Naxos set, aren’t particularly dissimilar.
The tepid applause, which occasionally reminds us that this is a live performance, sounds more dutiful than enthusiastic. One wonders why Naxos decided to issue it unless it were just to complete the Rossini Wildbad series. Unless you absolutely must have CDs, then the old Philips recording, now available as a download and warmly reviewed by Ralph Moore in his Rossini survey, is far preferable.
Callas’s second stereo recording of Lucia di Lammermoor, which I reviewed when it was reissued by Warner , has always been considered one of her best from a sonic point of view, so, as someone who has not always been totally convinced by some of Andrew Rose’s re-mastering methods, I wondered how, if at all, the sound could be improved upon. Let me say straight away that I found this latest addition to Pristine’s Callas catalogue totally convincing. Using the Warner remaster of 2014 for comparison, I found the sound altogether warmer and much more comfortable to listen to, closer in fact to how I remember the LPs that I used to own (a German EMI Electrola issue, bought as an import). The Warner is perhaps slightly clearer, but the digitalisation tends to add glare to Callas’s top register. Often one is prepared to flinch before the topmost notes, but I had no such problems when listening to this Pristine pressing. I couldn’t say which is the more truthful, but I can say that the Pristine is much more comfortable to listen to and this, in turn, affected my impressions of the set, a recording I have known since my youth and was in fact my introduction to the opera.
Lucia was one of the cornerstones of her repertoire, and she first sang it in 1952 in Mexico. The following year she sang the role again in Florence, where she made her first recording of the role under Serafin. It was also the first recording she made for EMI. Back in those days, the opera wasn’t taken very seriously and was most likely considered a silly Italian opera in which a doll-like coloratura soprano ran around the stage showing off her high notes and flexibility. Callas returned a proper tragic dimension to the role, that most hadn’t even suspected was there. There is a touching story of Toti Dal Monti, an erstwhile famous Lucia herself, visiting Callas in her dressing room after a performance of the opera with tears running down her face and confessing she had sung the role for years with no idea of its dramatic potential.
When Callas first sang Lucia in Mexico and recorded it in Florence, she was at the peak of her vocal plenitude, as she was when she first sang it under Karajan at La Scala in 1954, but by the time she sang the role in Berlin in 1955 post weight loss, when Karajan took the La Scala company there, her voice had started to lighten and her conception of the role had become more inward. We can hear this in the famous live recording of one of the Berlin performances, but, for this 1959 recording, she appears to have taken this approach one step further. This may have had something to do with her by now fading vocal resources, but it results in a particularly touching portrayal of the innocent, young, impressionable girl. She has also trimmed away some of the showier variations in the cadenza in the Mad Scene, and the decorations are in consequence somewhat more modest. Am I alone in preferring it sung this way? Personally, I’d prefer to do without all that duetting with the flute altogether, as happens in the complete recording of the opera with Caballé and when Sylvia Sass sings it on one of her recital records. In any case, apart from a few of Callas’s topmost notes, she is in remarkably good voice and the filigree of the role is brilliantly executed with fluid and elegant ease. All in all, I prefer her performance in this set to the one on the 1953 Florence studio recording, not least because of the improved Pristine sound picture.
However, when it comes to her colleagues on this set, I am a little less well disposed towards them than Göran Forsling in his review of the digital download. Ferrucio Tagliavini was 45 at the time of this recording, but he sounds much older, more like an elderly roué than the Byronic Romantic figure of Scott’s and Donizetti’s imaginings. No amount of elegant phrasing can make up for his lack of sheer physical passion and I find myself longing for Di Stefano’s youthful ardour. As for Cappuccilli, he was at the very beginning of his considerable career, and he has yet to find a way of creating character in pure sound. He is just rather dull and no match for Gobbi on the earlier recording or for Panerai in Berlin. Bernard Ladysz makes very little impression at all and both Rafaele Arie and Nicola Zaccaria are preferable.
Serafin, as always, though he may not make any startling revelations, shapes the score with a perfect sense of its dramatic shape, albeit with the cuts that were traditional at the time. Karajan opened up some of those in his performances, and I would still place the 1955 Berlin performance at the top of all Callas’s recorded Lucias, especially in Divina Records latest remastering, but I enjoyed re-visiting this set and I have a feeling I’ll be reaching for this one more regularly than the earlier 1953 recording, not least because of the superior quality of Pristine’s remastering.
My only criticism is of the cover art, which has a photograph of Callas as Lucia in Florence in 1953, when she was still a rather large lady. One could be forgiven for thinking, at first glance, that this was the earlier recording. Surely a photo of the svelte Callas as Lucia would have been more appropriate. There are plenty of them, after all.
Philip's Assortment Box 