Giuseppe VERDI (1813-1901)
The Verdi Collection: Ernani ;
Luisa Miller ; La forza del destino
see review for performance details
rec. 2005/6
DYNAMIC CDS681 [7CDs: 77.23 + 43.22 + 77.41 + 74.37 + 69.45 + 40.15
+ 66.37]
This collection of three live performances of Verdi operas has a feature that
may not have been intended. They represent distinct periods in the great Italian
composer’s oeuvre. Ernani, Verdi’s fifth opera, is very
much in the style that has come to be known as Early Verdi where the
music has thrust and vitality without necessarily conveying the emotions of
the words. These works often have a patriotic basis. Luisa Miller verges
on the composer’s great Middle Period noted for the great trio
of operas Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata, all
staged between 1851 and 1853. In itself, Luisa Miller can be considered
transitional between the two periods mentioned. Notably, the work’s
subject matter concerns personal relationships and particularly that between
father and daughter. The final act is also more musically sophisticated than
the other two that are more in the composer’s earlier style complete
with stirring choruses and aria and duets with cabalettas. The third work,
La forza del destino, is very much of Verdi’s compositional maturity
with characters closely delineated in the music and with a dramatic tautness
that belies the complex, even rambling, story.
Ernani - Lyric dramain four parts (1844)
Ernani, the bandit - Marco Berti (tenor); Don Carlo, King of Spain - Carlo
Guelfi (baritone); Don Ruy de Silva, a Spanish grandee - Giacomo Prestia (bass);
Elvira, Silva’s niece and loved by Ernani - Susan Neves (soprano); Don
Riccardo, the King’s equerry - Samuele Simoncini (tenor); Jago, equerry
to Silva - Alessandro Svab (bass)
Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Reggio, Parma, Italy/Antonello Allemandi
Performed in the Critical Edition by Claudio Gallico
rec. live, Teatro Reggio, May 2005, annual Verdi Festival
Notes and Synopsis in English, German, French, Spanish
Libretto in Italian and English
Previously released as CDS496/1-2
Based on Victor Hugo’s play Hernani Verdi’s opera Ernani
was first performed at the Teatro la Fenice, Venice, on 9 March 1844. In the
Verdi oeuvre it follows directly after Nabucco and I Lombardi
premiered at La Scala in March 1842 and February 1843 respectively. These
works had been resounding successes and placed the thirty-year-old Verdi alongside
his older compatriot, Donizetti, at the forefront of Italian opera composers.
The prospect of a success in Venice was an attraction for Verdi and the composer,
aware of his increasing value, drove a hard bargain by which La Fenice would
stage I Lombardi as well as presenting the new opera to a libretto
of Verdi’s own choice. To write the verses he chose Piave, a native
of Venice, and who was to become his collaborator in many subsequent works.
Written in the traditional form of arias, cabalettas and group scenes, together
with virile choral contributions, the elements combine to make the work attractive
for audiences. I have never had a bad night at the theatre with this opera.
Nonetheless, Ernani was not a resounding success at the premiere, probably
due to the limitations of some soloists. However, for later performances at
La Scala Verdi wrote additional music for the role of Silva, to accommodate
the distinguished bass of the time, along with an added cabaletta in act one.
These additions and a stronger cast brought the success the composer hoped
for.
In my earlier review
of this performance, and the associated DVD (see review)
I found Marco Berti to have a somewhat tight tone and none too steady either.
However, he does improve and his efforts at more graceful phrasing are noted.
Overall I continue to be disappointed with Carlo Guelfi as Don Carlo, King
of Spain, and rival suitor for Elvira’s hand. He has a strong tone but
often sounds strained and unfocused in a role that requires legato and strong
middle-voiced enunciation. On DVD his strong tone and acting enables dramatic
situations to come over better as when Carlo first threatens dire consequences
for the plotters and more so after his elevation to the crown of Charlemagne.
As Don Ruy de Silva, Giacomo Prestia has a rather gruff tone with a tight
focus and a small tonal palette of colour. He expresses his words and tries
to create a character within these limitations.
The best singing comes from Susan Neves’ Elvira, the woman pursued by
all three male protagonists. Her vocalism is the most committed among the
soloists with good variety of tonal colour and characterisation. Her introductory
Sorte la notte (CD 1 Tr. 5) to her Ernani involami and Tutto
sprezzo (CD 1 trs. 6-7) is a little tentative, but once into her stride
her full voice, with a good range of tonal colour and variety of modulation,
is a great strength. Her poor acting is not a distraction on the CD whilst
in both versions she also copes much better than her colleagues with the conducting
of Antonello Allemandi who, in his eagerness to support his singers by allowing
time for them to phrase, often puts them under pressure in holding the vocal
line. In the trios of act one he ups the pace and the Verdian thrill factor
kicks in. He is similarly vibrant in his conducting of the choral contributions
portraying Ernani’s bandits. These passages are viscerally thrilling
as early Verdi scenes of this nature should be, particularly with this idiomatic
Italian chorus in full and virile voice.
Luisa Miller - Tragic melodrama in three acts (1849)
Count Walter, local landowner - Alexander Vonogradov (bass); Rodolfo, Count
Walter’s son - Giuseppe Sabbatini (tenor); Frederica, Duchess of Ostheim
and Walter’s niece - Ursula Ferri (mezzo); Wurm, Walter’s steward
- Arutjun Kotchinian (bass); Miller, a retired soldier - Damiano Salerno (baritone);
Luisa, Miller’s daughter - Darina Takova (soprano)
Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro La Fenice, Venice, Italy/Maurizo Benini
Notes and Synopsis in English, German, French, Spanish
Libretto in Italian and English
rec. live, May 2006
Previously released as CDS523/1-2
Luisa Miller came at the end of what Verdi referred to as his anni
de galera or years in the galleys. It was a period when he was always
racing against time. Whilst composing one opera, he was planning the subjects
of others and supervising, often in minute detail, the writing of the librettos
of another one or two. Added to those pressures were negotiations with impresarios
and publishers for operas to follow. In Part
2 of my Verdi conspectus I detail the background, and various recorded
performances, of the ten operas that he composed in the hectic five years
between I due Foscari (1844) and Luisa Miller (1849).
In 1847 Verdi signed a contract to compose an opera for Naples. He then spent
the next two years trying, on one pretext or another, to withdraw from it.
Verdi stipulated that the new work should be a brief drama of interest,
action and above all feeling. Cammarano, his chosen librettist, suggested
Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love). Given the nature
of the Naples censors Cammarano, a native of the city, took care to eliminate
the political and social overtones of Schiller’s play with its story
of innocence destroyed by corruption and the machinations of those in power.
Schiller’s play became Luisa Miller, Verdi’s 15th
opera. Whilst Verdi might originally have wanted something spectacular for
the San Carlo, what he and Cammarano actually hatched was an intense personal
drama and with the lyrical elements achieved by the avoidance of excessive
use of brass and timpani.
In parts of La battaglia di Legnano,Verdi’s previous opera,
the composer had learned how to express intimate emotions. In Luisa Miller
he takes this skill a quantum leap forward. The plaintive woodwind tones give
character to the more intimate pastoral nature of the early scenes in particular.
The individual characters are filled out musically and encompass the varying
emotions they have to convey and which differ significantly in the three acts.
It is in the music of the last act, and particularly the duets between father
and daughter, where scholars and musicologists suggest that Verdi really breaks
new ground and shows himself compositionally ready for the subjects of the
great operas that were shortly to flow from his pen.
The best news about this performance comes with conductor Maurizio Benini’s
handling of the score. His dynamics in the opening overture sets a storm of
the passions to follow. The worst news is the Miller of Damiano Salerno who
starts off with a distinct wobble and whilst this steadies his rather dry
monochromic tone fails to improve. It militates against Verdi’s writing
that has so much paternal concern and passion. As his son, Giuseppe Sabbatini
is often vocally strained beyond his dramatic compass, having to thicken his
tone and which becomes somewhat throaty and nasal. We are used to hearing
him in lighter roles and he fails to make the step up to the lover Rodolfo
with his Quando le sere in Placido. It’s lacking in much vocal
grace (CD 2 Tr.7). The dark-toned Wurm of Arutjun Kotchinian is nicely contrasted
with the fellow bass Alexander Vonogradov as Count Walter, making their narrative
duet (CD 2 Trs 1-2) of more interest than usual. Despite the virtues of the
two basses, it is the women who really shine. In the tragic eponymous role,
Darina Takova sings with good expression and characterisation, her vocal virtues
encompassing the many emotions called for with pleasing tone and range of
expression. The voice that really breathes quality is that of Ursula Ferri
as the Duchess of Ostheim, Walter’s niece and Rodolfo’s intended.
I was sorry that the role was not more extensive as her warm contraltoish
mezzo is a delight.
Despite my criticisms of some of the singing I enjoyed listening to this live
performance even if it does not match that on the Arts label (see review)
with its star tenor soloist, also well conducted.
La forza del destino - Melodramma in four acts. Revised 1869
version.
Marquis of Calatrava - Giuseppe Nicodemo (bass); Donna Leonora, his daughter
- Susanna Branchini (soprano); Curra, her chambermaid - Silvia Balistreri
(soprano); Don Alvaro, lover of Leonora and of Royal Inca Indian descent -
Renzo Zulian (tenor); Don Carlo of Vargas, Leonora’s brother - Marco
Di Felice (baritone); Preziosilla, Tiziana Carraro (mezzo); Fra Melitone,
Paolo Rumetz (bass-baritone); Padre Guardiano - Paolo Battaglia (bass); Mastro
Trabuco, muleteer - Antonio Feltracco (tenor); Alcade, Luca Dall’Amico
(tenor); Spanish military surgeon - Romano Franci (tenor)
Orchestra Filarmonica Veneta/Lukas Karytinos
rec. live, Teatro Communale di Modena, Italy, January 2006
Notes in Italian (original language), English, German, French
Libretto in Italian and English
Previously released as CDS512/1-3
After all the trouble with the censor in Naples during 1858 - where Un
Ballo in Maschera should have been staged before being premiered in Rome
in February 1859 - Verdi announced to a small circle of friends that he had
given up composing and intended to return to his farm and enjoy the fruits
of his labours in a more relaxed manner. However, Cavour, the father of the
fight for the unification of Italy, persuaded Verdi to stand for Italy’s
first National Parliament. He did so and was elected and attended assiduously
until Cavour’s premature and untimely death when his interest declined.
December 1860, whilst Verdi was away in Turin on parliamentary business, Giuseppina
received a letter from a friend in Russia. Also enclosed was an invitation
from the great Italian dramatic tenor Enrico Tamberlick, who Verdi knew and
admired. Acting on behalf of the Imperial Theatre of St. Petersburg
the letter invited Verdi to write an opera for the following season. Despite
the likelihood of temperatures of 22 degrees below zero, the prospect of a
visit to Imperial Russia appealed to Giuseppina and she promised to use all
endeavours to try and persuade Verdi to accept. Whether it was her skills
of persuasion, the fact that he was missing the theatre, or the conditions
of the contract, and the large fee that would help fund the major alterations
at his estate at Sant’Agata, Verdi agreed.
Verdi settled on the Spanish romantic drama Don Alvaro, o La fuerza de
sino by Angel Perez de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas as a suitable subject for
the new opera and asked Piave to provide the libretto. It is sometimes said
that the story is too rambling and full of improbabilities. That may be so,
but it certainly inspired Verdi to compose some of his most wonderful melodies
and fully characterise the roles in his music. He lightened the dark plot
with its multiple deaths somewhat further than the play using a scene from
Schiller’s Wallenstein Lager involving a panorama of life in
a military encampment including soldiers, vivandieres, gypsies and a monk
who preaches in the funniest and most delightful manner in the world.
The monk would become Melitone in the opera and is often seen as a precursor
to the comic role in his great final opera, Falstaff.
La forza del destino demands full-toned Verdi voices. It is not a work
suitable for light lyric voices. This is best illustrated by the fact that
when Verdi and his wife made the long journey to St. Petersburg for the premiere
in December 1861, and found the soprano contracted for the role of Leonora
to be ill, it was not possible to find a substitute singer from the company
roster. The whole production was postponed for one year. When the opera was
eventually premiered on 10 November 1862 it was a success with the Tsar attending,
inviting the Verdis to his box, and later investing him with the highest state
honours.
Not wholly happy about the ending of the opera with its depressing multiple
deaths in the final scene Verdi withheld the score from theatres that he considered
incapable of doing it justice. After some minor tinkering he eventually got
round to a revision when Ricordi proposed performances at La Scala. It is
in this revised form, premiered at La Scala on 27 February 1869, that the
work is heard today and in this performance.
In my earlier review I was perhaps unduly harsh on Susanna Branchini, suggesting
she barely had the vocal heft for Mimi let alone the spinto demands of Leonora.
Even in the small-sized Teatro Communale di Modena where this performance
was recorded she struggles to ride over the orchestra and convey the agonies
of the role. As her brother, the baritone Marco Di Felice, and lover, the
tenor Renzo Zulian, have some of the most dramatic duets that Verdi ever wrote.
Whilst the staging on the DVD helps cover their vocal limitations their deficiencies
are more evident in sound alone. Neither is a singer of the top class, both
being strained at the top of the voice, but they manage to invest the music
with some frisson. Elsewhere the young bass Paolo Battaglia as Padre Guardiano
has moments when I think his voice has promise with sap and bass resonance;
at others his tone is dry. Overall he is unable to find the required vocal
gravitas. As Fra Melitone, Paolo Rumetz portrays the part of the irascible
brother quite well albeit with some unsteadiness at the top. Tiziana Carraro’s
Preziosilla has no such trouble and sings with vibrancy and character.
Robert J Farr
This bargain-priced collection is a good starter for someone new to Verdi
or for those enthusiasts who prefer live performances to studio recordings.