Just
a couple of months ago - I am writing this in mid-December
2008 - I reviewed the reissue of Karajan’s recording of
La
Bohème on Decca with Mirella Freni, Luciano Pavarotti,
Elisabeth Harwood, Rolando Panerai and Nicolai Ghiaurov (read
the review
here).
I finished off the review with the statement ‘This is one
of the greatest opera recordings of all times.’ I then made
it a ‘Recording of the Month’ and included it among my allotted
six choices for ‘Recordings of the Year’. The only serious
contender is the much older Beecham recording with Victoria
de los Angeles and Jussi Björling, which will never be redundant
but falls short through the rather mediocre sound. I will
probably never withdraw my enthusiasm for these two sets
but here comes another that goes straight to the winners’ stand.
The recording, constituting the soundtrack for Robert Dornhelm’s
film, was first issued just months ago and
reviewed by
Ian Lace and this second issue is identical, but presented
in a slim-line box and without libretto. I suppose the target
group is those seeing the film and wanting a souvenir.
But
it is much more than that. Rarely has this opera been so
permeated by youthful freshness, charm and humour but also
a sense of real-life report. These characters are no cardboard
figures but young people of flesh and blood, leading a joyous
but miserable life in the Quartier Latin. I haven’t seen
the film and I doubt it has reached these shores but the
stills in the booklet seem to tell the same story as the
soundtrack does.
Bertrand
de Billy keeps the score on the move, being marginally faster
than Karajan, but doesn’t underplay the great emotional scenes:
the end of act I, most of act III and the second half of
act IV. He is wonderfully precise and rhythmically taut in
act II, which has been a stumble-block to many conductors.
The
cast of soloists is uniformly excellent in what after all
is Puccini’s ensemble opera par preference. Columns and columns
have been written about the extraordinary rapport between
Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon – I reviewed their
Manon on
DVD recently – and their joint scenes on this recording again
show their instinctive feeling for phrases, nuances and understanding
of their characters. There is a nervous youthfulness in their
dialogue in act I and the arias and duets there and elsewhere
have hardly ever been sung with such golden tone and perfect
timing. But the rest of the cast are also perfectly attuned
to their roles, none more so than Boaz Daniel’s lyrical and
extremely well sung Marcello. He is without doubt superior
to Robert Merrill’s vocally superb but theatrically all-purpose
painter on the Beecham set and he is more elegant than Panerai
on the Karajan.
Nicole Cabell, Cardiff Singer of the World
winner in 2005, stood out as enormously promising on her
debut recital (see
review)
but she isn’t promising any more; she is as fully fledged
a star as could be. On that recital I found some coldness
in her voice in Musetta’s waltz song. Maybe she isn’t as
alluring as, say, Anna Moffo on the Callas recording but
the aria couldn’t be more persuasively sung. Stéphane Degout
is as good a Schaunard as Puccini allows him – the role isn’t
exactly one of the most grateful vocally – and Vitalij Kowaljow
is a warm Colline. Tiziano Bracci doubles as Benoît and Alcindoro,
as very often also is the norm on stage, and appears also
as a customs official in act III. He makes less of a caricature
of the two old men than some singers in the past.
The
sound is splendid and I only wondered about the information
that it was recorded live. There are no signs of an audience
or other distractions, only some footsteps which make dramatic
sense anyway.
‘This
album compares favorably with the best of all previous
La
Bohème recordings’, wrote Ian Lace in his review. I agree
wholeheartedly.
Göran Forsling
see also reviews by Ian
Lace (different release of same recording)
and Robert Farr (highlights)