Francesco CILEA
(1866 - 1950) L’Arlesiana:
E’ la solita storia; Giacomo
PUCCINI (1858 - 1924) Manon
Lescaut: Ah! Manon, mi tradisce; Pietro
MASCAGNI (1863 - 1945) Lodoletta:
Se Franz dicesse … Ah! Ritrovarla; Umberto
GIORDANO (1867 - 1948) Andrea
Chenier: Un di all’azzurro spazio; Pietro
MASCAGNI Isabeau: Non colombelle!
… Tu ch’odi lo mio; E passera la viva
creatura; Giuseppe
VERDI (1813 – 1901) La forza
del destino: La vita e inferno – O tu
che in seno; Giovanni
MILITELLO (? - ?) Ninna nanna
grigioverde; Tenerezza; Ernesto
TAGLIAFERRI (1889 - 1937)/Nicola
VALENTE (? - ?) Passione; Giuseppe
CIOFFI (19th /20th
Cent.) Tre rose; Georges
BIZET (1838 - 1875) Carmen:
Quels regards! … Parle-moi de ma mère
– Votre mère avec moi … Ma mère,
je la vois (with Rina Gigli, soprano);
Evemero NARDELLA
(19th/20th Cent.)
Surdate; Giuseppe
CIOFFI ‘Na sera ‘e maggio;
Vincenzo VALENTE
(1855 - 1921) Troppo ‘nnammurato;
Dino OLIVERI
(? - ?) Son poche rose; Ruggero
LEONCAVALLO (1858 - 1919) Pagliacci:
Si puo? ( Prologue); Karl
MILLÖCKER (1842 - 1899)
Der Feldprediger: Nur ein Traum, flücht’ger
schaum aber doch; Cesare
Andrea BIXIO (20th Cent.)
Cinefollia; Dimmi tu, primavera
Beniamino Gigli (tenor)
La Scala Orchestra/Umberto Berrettoni
(tr. 1 – 8, 13 and 14), Giovanni Militello
(tr. 9 and 10), Orchestra/Dino Oliveri
(tr. 11 and 12, 15 – 18), Prussian State
Orchestra/Bruno Seidler-Winkler (tr. 19
and 20), Orchestra and Chorus of the Rome
Opera House/Luigi Ricci
Recorded in Milan 14th – 17th
June 1941 (tr. 1 – 8), in the Conservatorio
Milan 23rd November 1941 (tr.
9 and 10), in Milan 20th –
24th February 1942 (tr. 11
– 18), in the Electrola Studios, Berlin
10th August 1942 (tr. 19 and
20), in Rome 29th June 1943
(tr. 21 and 22)
With volume 11 we have
reached the stage where Romophone’s
Gigli series had to be discontinued.
This means that these transfers by Mark
Obert-Thorn, prepared in 2001, appear
here for the first time. The sound is
what we have come to expect from Gigli’s
voice, which was ideal for recording,
leaping out of the speakers with stunning
realism. Obert-Thorn points out that
the "’whistle’ which can be heard
at the ends of some of the Italian sides
is a result of the cooling of the vax
matrices before the recording had finished
being inscribed". It didn’t disturb
me but it is worth mentioning.
These recordings were
made in the middle of WW2, when Gigli’s
activities were limited to Italy and
Germany with the odd appearance in the
Balkans. His voice was still in premium
condition although, as readers who have
followed this series will know, it had
darkened ever so little but more importantly
gained in power. Gigli was always an
intense performer, sometimes going over
the top with sobs and histrionics, but
what remains in my memory is the burnished
intensity of his delivery. Looking back
through my notes I read time and again
"intense!!" with sometimes
an added comment concerning "the
glorious voice being as intact as it
was ten or more years earlier".
There are no surface scratches – a rarity
among tenors after so many busy years
in the trade. Gigli was wise to choose
repertoire according to the status of
his voice, and his half-voice is as
magical as before. Listen to the first
track, Cilea’s E’ la solita storia,
which he studied with the composer,
whom he convinced that he should sing
an unwritten B natural at its close.
The first eight tracks are all opera
arias that, with the exception of the
Chenier aria, he hadn’t tackled
before on record. It was at this time
that he finally felt ready for Canio
in Pagliacci, a part he had recorded
almost ten years earlier. He recorded
Alvaro’s third act aria from La forza
del destino (track 7-8) in what
has to be counted as one of his best
recordings. On stage he rarely appeared
in this part but the cover photo shows
him as Alvaro at Teatro Colón
in 1933 and as late as August 1950,
when he was 60, he sang three performances
in the Arena di Verona. It is also good
to have the rarely heard arias from
Mascagni’s Lodoletta and Isabeau.
In 1941 he undertook
Don José in Carmen for
the first time and shortly afterwards
recorded the first act Micaëla
– José duet with his daughter
Rina. Hers was never an important career
and the recording shows why, for there
is very little of the tonal beauty that
her father possessed in abundance. On
the other hand she is quite careful
with nuances. Gigli is his glorious
self. Something of a curiosity is the
disc he set down in Berlin in 1942 with
music that he had already recorded for
the soundtrack of a film. What is presented
here is the Electrola recording, where
he sings the baritone prologue from
Pagliacci. One misses some of
the darker sonorities of a baritone
voice but otherwise it is a perfectly
valid interpretation, sung with his
customary identification. The Millöcker
aria, sung in Italian – as is also the
Carmen duet – has a great deal
of Viennese "Schmaltz".
The rest of the disc
is filled with generous helpings of
popular songs, not all of them in the
top league of the trade, but as always
Gigli lavishes gold even on some ditties
and makes them sound better than they
are. The conductor Oliveri’s Son
poche rose (track 18) should be
mentioned for the exquisite mezza-voce
end. The two concluding Bixio songs
are gloriously sung but I could have
lived without the participating chorus.
To Gigli admirers this
is a self-recommending issue and Alan
Blyth’s liner notes are as always a
good read. Newcomers to Gigli are better
advised to start with volumes 7 and
8, but presumably they will end up buying
the whole series anyway.
Göran Forsling
NAXOS 8.110272 [76:51] 
