In
an earlier
review of
one of the last studio recordings of
Il Trovatore,
I took mild issue with Caruso’s claim that ‘all that
was needed for this opera was
‘the four greatest singers
in the world’. My point being as to the number: the
part of Ferrando, sung here with distinction by the French
Canadian Joseph Rouleau (CD 1 trs.1-5 and CD 2 tr.1),
a Covent garden regular, is as important as the other
four principals. I might more gainfully have expanded
on the type of voice of the great singers Caruso may
have had in mind. I am always aware that Verdi’s great
middle period trio of
Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and
La
Traviata, all premiered over a two year period from
March 1851, call for very different type and weight of
voices for the soprano and, to a lesser extent, the tenor.
It is also worth pointing out the very different key
registers and musical ambience of the latter two. This
is perhaps the more remarkable considering that these
operas were composed, in part, contemporaneously.
Whilst
the soprano and tenor roles in
La Traviata call
for lyric, flexible voices, for
Il Trovatore heavier
spinto voices are required. When this new production
by Visconti, and conducted by Giulini, was announced
it raised great expectations of a repeat of their memorable
collaboration in Verdi’s
Don Carlo in 1958 which
did so much to bring that opera back into mainstream
repertoire (see
review).
The sets of
Il Trovatore by Filippo Sanjust came
in for criticism for size and over-elaboration. When
I caught up with the production in 1973 I simply gloried
in their sumptuousness. More so after my next
Il Trovatore:
it was set in a Spanish Civil War railway station and
included a gratuitous whore hawking herself around the
soldiery!
What
was perhaps the biggest disappointment for the audience
at Covent Garden was the cancellation of the American
soprano Leontyne Price. She and Zinka Milanov were unequalled
in the Verdi soprano roles in the post-Second World War
era not least as Leonora in this opera. Leonora is very
much a spinto role, and while Gwyneth Jones sings with
clear silvery tone (CD 1 trs.7-9) and a passable trill,
she has neither the heft nor vocal lustre required for
the dramatic agonies of the role (CD 2 trs.10-16). As
her lover the Italian tenor Bruno Prevedi was little
known in Britain except for his recording of the small
tenor part of Ishmael in the 1964 Decca recording of
Nabucco (417
407-2). His is a lean strong lyric Italianate tenor whose
forward tones and good diction are welcome. However,
he does not have the natural power for the role of Manrico
and his tone becomes throaty when he puts pressure on
the voice (CD 1 tr19). He manages the high C in
Di
quella pira and wisely does not include the reprise
(CD 2 tr.8).
What
the higher voices lack in appropriate power, the lower
ones have in abundance. The Italian mezzo Giulietta Simionato
sings Azucena, the gypsy after whom Verdi nearly titled
his opera. She sings with steady sonority and good characterisation
and with admirable rendition of her solos,
Stride
la vampa (CD 1 tr.15) and
Ai nostri monti (CD
2 tr.19). She also plays a full part in the ensembles
and dramatic duets with her son. If I cannot extend superlatives
it is because my memories are full of Fiorenza Cossotto
in the role in the 1973 reprise of the production already
referred to. In that performance Cossotto sang and acted
everyone off the stage within a radius of fifty miles
and brought the house to its feet at the curtain calls.
She sings the role on the still unsurpassed 1970 RCA
studio recording alongside Leontyne Price as Leonora,
Placido Domingo as Manrico and Sherrill Milnes as Luna
(RD 86914). As far as singer-acting goes, the outstanding
portrayal by far is that of the scheming Luna by the
Yorkshire-born baritone Peter Glossop, who died in September
2008. For much of the 1960s and early 1970s he was the
stalwart in the Verdi repertoire at Covent Garden and
elsewhere including La Scala and other leading Italian
theatres. It is to my regret that he didn’t get a lot
of opportunity on mainstream labels in this repertoire.
In such operas he excelled with his incisive tone, excellent
diction and consummate characterisation. These characteristics
are all in evidence here as he conveys the evil machinations
of Luna. His
Il balen (CD 1 tr. 24) could perhaps
have been more even but is full of malevolent intent.
At
the time of the performance some critics picked over
Giulini’s conducting somewhat pedantically. His general
pacing, feel for Verdian line and support for singers
is to my ears exemplary. It is certainly preferable to
his audio recording of 1983 for DG (423 858-2). The BBC
Radio 3 engineers manage the difficult recording acoustic
of Covent Garden to give a realistic stage presence and
balance. There are inevitable interruptions for applause.
Thankfully this is not of the unnecessarily prolonged
and raucous type often heard in live performances from
Vienna, and to an extent, at New York’s Met.
It
would appear that source material was from the
British
Library Sound Archive. I hope that source has many
more performances from Covent Garden that will appear
on CD in due course. Despite my criticisms I welcome
this opportunity to look back and listen to performances
from a generation when we could hear truly great Verdi
singers as a benchmark. Such voices are currently sadly
lacking in our major operatic houses.
Robert J Farr