This was the first complete Falstaff ever made
and preserves a performance of consistent and superior musicality. The
cast includes some of the leading singers at La Scala, the conductor
is the biographically obscure but prolific Lorenzo Molajoli, a notably
dynamic force here, and the recording quality is clear, clean, free
from obtrusive surface noise, well – sparingly - equalized by Ward Marston.
Should you want to buy it what will you be getting
in the way of interpretation? Firstly Tassinari. She was twenty-nine,
had only recently made her debut at the house and was at the outset
of her twenty-four year La Scala career. She is forthright and energetic
with a sensuality that is both youthful and knowing – a major interpretation
by perhaps the best-known cast member. The appendix of items – principally
wartime Italian Cetra recordings – show the advances in expression and
colour made in the intervening period even if the initial youthful sheen
has waned. Then there is the Falstaff of Giacomo Rimini, a buffo of
distinction who’d sung at the premiere of Turandot at La Scala six years
earlier. A putative rival as Falstaff to the great Stabile his is an
immediately attractive baritone with a real downward extension tending
almost to the bass-baritone. Emilio Ghirardini is Ford – comic, full
of stagecraft and with a commendable voice – not outstanding but undeniably
effective and well worth hearing as part of the so-called second string
cast presented here. Nannetta is taken by Ines Alfani Tellini and she
is charming – she doesn’t have an opulent voice but it’s well deployed.
The husband and wife team of Roberto D’Alessio and Aurora Buades take
the roles of Fenton and Mrs. Quickly. They recorded a number of duets
together and the Sicilian D’Alessio was paid the signal honour by Toscanini
of singing the Duke in Rigoletto in 1927. Whilst he was a favourite
guest artist it was in the more provincial opera houses in Italy – Turin
and Palermo especially – and a real international career rather evaded
him. I suppose one can discern why from his performance here - he has
a certain reserved suavity about him but the voice is nothing special.
His wife is certainly flighty and full of passion – perhaps a little
too much sometimes for the good of her voice.
Lorenzo Molajoli was one of those rather mysterious
conductors who sometimes make an appearance in the discographical history
of early recording. Probably born in Rome in 1868 he set off on a peripatetic
opera career throughout the Italian and South American circuits. A regular
at La Scala he was also busy in the recording studios – La Traviata,
Andrea Chénier, La Gioconda and Il trovatore have all been reissued
by Naxos in their uniform edition but I think that this Falstaff may
well – not least because of the crisp ensemble and energy he imparts
– be about the best of them. He’s notably good at controlled tempi at
a basically brisk pulse. Above all else, I suppose, this Falstaff shows
La Scala as it was a few years after Toscanini’s final departure; the
sense of ensemble, orchestral and vocal, was pronounced, a cast now
perhaps thought of as essentially of the second rank was still capable
of splendidly convincing performances and the guiding hand of an experienced
conductor was still available in the shape of Molajoli. As with most
premiere recordings there is also something about this Falstaff that,
whatever its limitations and imperfections, grips tight and won’t let
go.
Jonathan Woolf
Orchestra and Chorus of
La Scala Milan/Lorenzo Molajoli