Friedrich von
FLOTOW (1812-1883)
Martha, M’appari
Amilcare PONCHIELLI
(1834-1886)
La Gioconda, Cielo e mar!
Georges BIZET
(1838-1870)
Les Pecheurs de perles,
Je crois entendre encore (sung in Italian)
Gaetano DONIZETTI
(1797-1868)
L’Elisir d’amore, Una
furtiva lagrima
SEISMIT-DODA
Notte lunare
Luigi DENZA
(1846-1922) Se Occhi di fata
Stanislao GASTALDON
(1861-1939) Musica probita
Ernesto DE
CURTIS (1875-1937) Carmela.
KREISLER
Vecchio ritornello
Emanuele NUTILE
(1862-1932) Mamma mia, che vo’ sape
Giuseppe VERDI
(1813-1901)
I Lombardi, Oh non piu
dinanzi al cielo
Attila, Te sol quest’
anima
Caruso’s abrupt departure
from the New York Met at the end of
1920 left a massive gap in their tenor
array. The great man had opened every
season except one since 1903. Gigli
(1890-1957) was one of several tenors
available to fill the gap. His performance
as Andrea Chenier on March 7th
1921 was rapturously received and convinced
Gatti Casazza, the General Manager,
that Gigli was Caruso’s natural successor.
Consequently he was chosen to open the
1921-1922 season later that year and
installed as premier tenor on the house
roster.
Following his injury
from falling scenery the week before,
Caruso had haemorrhaged whilst singing
Nemorino in L’Elisir d’Amore on 11th
December 1920 and had been unable to
complete the performance. Although the
role of Nemorino was ideally suited
to Gigli’s voice and stage persona,
the superstitious Gatti Casazza didn’t
schedule the opera again until 1930
when Gigli enjoyed the expected considerable
success. He recorded the aria Una furtiva
lagrima on the second of a two-day session
on December 19th 1929. In
the sleeve note William Ashbrook extols
Gigli’s singing of the aria (tr. 7).
On the contrary, I find Gigli’s tone
unusually heavy and somewhat throaty
as I do the following Se by Denza recorded
at the same session (tr. 8). The long-breathed
elegant phrasing, honeyed mezza voce
and well supported lyric tone I expected
in Una furtiva lagrima are found in
Ponchielli’s Cielo e mar recorded the
day before (tr. 4). In the halcyon recording
days of the 1930s it wasn’t unusual
for a star tenor to fit in appearances
on the stage of a major opera house
during weeks when he was also in the
recording studio. I don’t know if Gigli
had sung a recital or a performance
on the night of the first of those two
days, was cooking a virus, or was just
out of sorts. I wonder whether Graeme
Kay in his ‘Beniamino Gigli, A Life
in Words and Music’, feels the same.
He chooses Gigli’s singing of the aria
Quanto e Bello from L’Elisir to illustrate
his narrative of the 1930 performances
(CD 2. trs. 20 and 21 of that issue).
(LINK to my review).
Elsewhere on this disc
Gigli’s singing of M’appari (tr. 3)
is particularly fine. Also exemplary
are his Musica probita (tr. 9) and Carmela
(tr.10). These are among several Italian
and Neapolitan songs that featured regularly
in his recital concerts and where his
diction and play with the words of his
native language is a delight. The two
Verdi trios constitute unusual repertoire
for the record buying public of the
time. Gigli had sung the trio Oh non
piu dinanzi al cielo from I Lombardi
in several of the Met Sunday night concerts
that were a feature of the theatre at
that period. In this trio (tr. 14 and
alternative take tr. 15) Gigli shows
himself an ideal Verdi stylist with
open-throated expressive singing. Of
equal interest is the sonorous tone
of the young Ezio Pinza who matches
Gigli with well-characterised expressive
singing. Pinza finds no trouble with
the higher tessitura of the baritone
role of Forresto in the Atilla trio
Te sol quest’ anima (trs. 16 and 17).
Rethberg is a little light of tone for
these early Verdi extracts, but she
and Gigli hit a fine high B in unison
at the end of the I Lombardi trio.
Although he was not
to know it Gigli’s career at the Met
was drawing to an acrimonious close.
It was to be propitious that he made
his belated Covent Garden debut in 1930,
a period when he was at the height of
his vocal powers. Apart from my minor
reservations about Una furtiva lagrima,
this excellent CD remastering by Mark
Obert-Thorn provides an ideal opportunity
to hear Gigli in his golden vocal period.
Strongly recommended.
Robert J Farr
see also review
by Jonathan Woolf
Beniamino Gigli (tenor) 
