BARGAIN OF THE MONTH
Gaetano DONIZETTI (1797-1868)
Lucrezia Borgia - Melodramma in a Prologue and Two Acts (1833)
Lucrezia Borgia - Montserrat Caballé (soprano); Gennaro
- Alfredo Krauss (tenor); Don Alfonso, Duke of Ferraro - Ezio Flagello (bass);
Mafio Orsini, a young nobleman - Shirley Verrett (mezzo); Astolfo - Robert
El Hage (bass); Gubetta - Vito Maria Brunetti (bass); Rustighello - Giuseppe
Baratti (tenor)
RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra and Chorus/Jonel Perlea
rec. RCA Italiana Studios, Rome, Italy, 1966
SONY OPERA HOUSE 88697 575942 [60.53 + 73.22]
I had thought about starting this review with the well-known introductory phrase “Once
upon a time ...” But, second thoughts were that my worthy editor
might just think I had lost it altogether and despatch my efforts and me to
the trash skip! Further thought brought the reality that this 1966 recording
could well be considered an early chapter in the human fairy tale that launched
the international career of one of the greatest singers of the second half
of the twentieth century. It became the precursor, over the next twenty odd
years, of twenty-eight studio opera recordings for various major labels across
the bel canto, lyrico spinto and verismo genres, many recital discs and innumerable
pirate recordings, but that is to jump ahead.
The story starts somewhat like an opera, with a prologue some years before
the main action, and concerns how a twenty-four year old guy called Allen Sven
Oxenberg founded The American Opera Society with the intention of bringing,
in concert, rare repertoire to New York audiences. He provided his audiences
with the premieres of many works they had never heard before such as Medea, Giovanni
d’Arco, Les Troyens and even Billy Budd. It was a time
even before Callas had got her teeth into the bel canto repertoire and
when she later fell out with Bing, intendant of New York’s Metropolitan
Opera, she brought that genre to Oxenberg’s audience in 1958 with Bellini’s Il
Pirata for its American debut. Overnight the AOS became New York’s
principal purveyor of star operatic attractions, even, in February 1962 upstaging
the Met with Sutherland’s debut in the city singing the eponymous role
in Bellini’s long forgotten Beatrice di Tenda. Sutherland was
later joined by emerging American mezzo Marilyn Horne, the two singing Rossini’s
rarely heard Semiramide for the Society, after which Oxenberg sought
a suitable role for Horne alone. She was in something of a vocal identity crisis,
able to encompass much that was in the treble clef including soprano roles
as well as the coloratura mezzo repertoire. He sought a suitable vehicle for
her, the AOS and the ongoing bel canto revival. He settled on the soprano
title role in Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia for performance on 20
April 1965 at Carnegie Hall. With all tickets sold, and only weeks to go, Horne
hit problems with her advanced pregnancy and pulled out.
Oxenberg called in vain the only two divas known to be conversant with the
idiom, Sutherland and Gencer, both of whom were fully committed. An agent,
Bernard Delfont, suggested a Spanish soprano who he had recently heard in Figaro at
Lausanne. Her name was Montserrat Caballé. She had been singing professionally
for ten years and in diverse repertoire that even extended to the likes of
Strauss’s thickly orchestrated Salome, hardly bel canto (see review).
She was at home learning the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier for Glyndebourne.
It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and she contacted a well-known conductor
working in Barcelona who advised she sing it like Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Cosi
fan Tutte. Caballé’s biographers (Robert Pullen and Stephen
Taylor. Indigo 1996 pp,101 et seq) tell the raging success of the soprano’s
performance, and its aftermath, in New York and around the operatic world in
a chapter entitled A Trip to Stardom. Suffice to say Caballé went
from an unknown to the front page, as well as the arts pages, of the next day’s
New York papers. Bing asked her to name her price and what she wished to sing
for her debut in the Met. She also later returned to the American Opera
Society in a series of bel canto sequels.
As well as opera houses, the recording company RCA came along with a contract
to record Lucrezia Borgia the following year during their annual recording
sessions in Rome. The conductor was to be Jonel Perlea the same as at the New
York concert performance. Alongside Caballé they cast the Canarian tenor
Alfredo Krauss, a tenore di grazia of recognised vocal elegance, particularly
in the bel canto repertoire. The cast also comprised the young American
mezzo Shirley Verrett and regulars from the Met and Rome opera houses. The
recording features as one of esteemed Opera Magazine’s Thirty all-time
great recordings (August 2002). I would not quite put it that high if only
for the reason that Caballé, in her recordings of other works and recital
discs from the bel canto repertoire surpasses her standards here. However,
what is evident beyond doubt is that the recording captures the soprano’s
capacity for vocal beauty, smooth legato and elegant phrasing as well as exhibiting
the sublime floated pianissimos for which she became renowned, and more regrettably,
the lack of a trill that she never acquired. I also suspect that five years
or so later, with the likes of Norma and Elisabetta in Roberto Devereux firmly
in her repertoire, she would have given her husband Alfonso a harder time in
the act two confrontation as she reminds him of how many husbands she has already
seen off (CD2 trs.3-5). Somewhat different from the New York performance are
the inclusions of the cabaletta to Lucrezia’s Com’e bello (CD
1 trs.5-6) and the concluding rondo finale that Donizetti reluctantly wrote
for the creator Méric-Lalande at her insistence (Ashton. Donizetti
and his Operas. 1983 pp.348-357) as Lucrezia herself dies at the sight
of her dead son (CD 2 tr.18).
Krauss sings with his usual vocal elegance and somewhat reedy tone bringing
out the positive character of Gennaro in a manner that reflected Donizetti’s
writing. Previously, as Ashton points out, the composer had more often than
not failed in this respect, leaving his romantic tenors rather flaccid. This
is certainly not the case here as heard in the trios of both acts between Alfonso,
Lucrezia and Gennaro ((CD 1 trs.8-10 and CD 2 trs.5-7). Shirley Verrett sings
strongly and reliably as Orsini, perhaps missing a little of the character’s
vivacity in her Brindisi (CD 2 tr.12). Ezio Flagello sings strongly, but without
much vocal individuality, as Alfonso. The unusual numbers, and more extensive
writing than normal for the comprimario roles, are portrayed adequately if
without particular distinction. Perlea on the rostrum deserves more credit
than he often gets on record.
The recording has come up well from what I remember of the LPs and earlier
CD versions. The sound is typical of the period with the voices clear and well
forward but some lack of atmosphere and presence. The booklet has full cast-listing,
a track-listing and related synopsis, all in English, French and German.
The range of Caballé’s recorded repertoire, and something of her
background, can also be seen in my review,
and that of a colleague,
of collections from recital and opera recordings she made.
Robert J Farr