Vincenzo BELLINI (1801-1835)
Norma (1831)
Norma - Cecilia Bartoli (mezzo)
Adalgisa - Sumi Jo (soprano)
Pollione - John Osborn (tenor)
Oroveso - Michele Pertusi (bass)
Clotilde - Liliana Nikiteanu (soprano)
Flavio - Reinaldo Macias (tenor)
International Chamber Vocalista
Orchestra La Scintilla/Giovanni Antonini
rec. April, September 2011, January 2013, Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirchemeinde
Zurich-Oberstrass, Zurich
DECCA 4783517 [81:34 + 61:37]
Think you know Norma? Think again. Just as she did with her 2008 Sonnambula,
Cecilia Bartoli has set out to challenge all of our preconceptions about Bellini’s
opera. The intention was to recreate the piece to be as close as it is reasonably
possible to get to how it must have sounded when it was first performed in
the 1830s. In her very well researched booklet note, Bartoli notes that the
1830s had a very different, much more flexible concept of voice type to us
and that the singers who were most closely associated with the role of Norma
in the 1830s, namely Giuditta Pasta and Maria Malibran, were famous for singing
a lot of parts that we would today call mezzo-soprano roles. This challenges
the late 20th-century, post-Romantic conception of Norma as a role
for a high dramatic soprano, most famously exemplified by Maria Callas and
Joan Sutherland in the 1950s and 1960s. As with her Amina, Bartoli argues
a persuasive case that Norma works for a mezzo, though there are obvious losses
with some of the climactic high notes, more of which below. In addition, Bartoli
points out that the first Adalgisa was also the singer for whom Bellini wrote
the role of Elvira in I Puritani, so she follows this logic through
by giving Adalgisa to the high coloratura soprano of Sumi Jo, thus reversing
the poles of the opera as we have become used to them, though Bartoli points
out that, from the point of view of register and virtuosity, the differences
between Norma and Adalgisa are not all that substantial. This role reversal
is combined with a new critical edition and an orchestra of period instruments
to cast the opera in a whole new light.
It is, in fact, the orchestra who are the biggest surprise - and in many ways
the biggest asset - of the recording. In the tuttis there is a metallic
clang to their sound that is reminiscent of the Turkish music in Mozart’s
Entführung - just listen to the opening bars of the overture to
see what I mean - which is very surprising but really refreshing. The overture
itself goes at a fair lick - as does most of the rest of the opera, a result
of the creative team’s extensive research into Bellinian performance
practice. This helps to inject excitement and tension into the proceedings
so that you are never in any doubt that this is a drama of tension and excitement.
These rapid tempi also carry the incidental benefit that each of the two acts
appears complete on one CD. There is also a lovely transparency to the sound
made by Zurich’s Orchestra La Scintilla. That’s partly a result
of the instruments they choose - the earthy rasp of the brass - and the well
captured recording. A decision has clearly been made to allow the earthy thwack
of the period timpani to stand out in the texture. There are also the decisions
of conductor Giovanni Antonini who puts a lot of air around the sound at certain
key moments. Listen, for example, to the major key section at the end of the
overture which returns as part of the Guerra! guerra! chorus in Act
2: it is as bright, spacious and airy as the rest of the prelude had been
zingy and exciting. The climaxes are never less than thrilling, such as the
orchestral tutti that introduces Norma’s first appearance or
the march music that ends Pollione’s duet with Adalgisa. The choice
of period instruments, such as the wooden transverse flute in the introduction
to Casta Diva, helps to cast the colours of the work in a refreshing
new light.
What of the singing? Well, it’s certainly different to what you’ll
be used to, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll necessarily like
it. Bartoli herself is never less than commanding in the title role. Her opening
Sediziose voci, for example, is marvellously imperious, for all the
lightness of the voice and the lower pitch. However, I was never entirely
convinced that she was seeing the role from the inside. For all her research
and her revelations into performance practice, she never sounded quite right
to my ears, which have, admittedly, been conditioned by years of listening
to Callas and Sutherland. The thrilling ring of the top notes pinged out at
the end of scenes was, in most cases, entirely missing. OK, those high notes
may not be precisely authentic, but they sure are thrilling. I couldn’t
shake the thought that Norma loses something without that opportunity
for extrovert vocal display. The end of the great cabaletta Ah! bello a
me ritorna, for example, passes for almost nothing, with Norma’s
voice all but subsumed into the overall texture. Don’t those high notes
show another aspect of the priestess’s almost superhuman character,
after all?
More troublingly for me, I’ve often been bothered in the past by a warble,
almost a yodel that has a habit of creeping into Bartoli’s voice. It
bothered me quite a bit here. Often I just wanted her to sing the note with
clarity and beauty - it’s bel canto, after all - and not worry
about the rest. When she does that, such as in Casta Diva, she sounds
fantastic, but that “yodel” creeps into many of the recitatives,
presumably as a misguided attempt to inject more drama into the exchanges;
I found it very off-putting. The two places it does work well are her hysterical
denunciation of Pollione when she first finds out about his affair with Adalgisa,
and the recitative that opens Act 2, where she considers murdering her children.
In those instances all the technique is used to enhance the drama. Bartoli
is undoubtedly a wonderful actress, and that comes across very well in this
recording, but she is sometimes in danger of being a finer dramatist than
she is a musician.
Sumi Jo, however, is a delightful Adalgisa. Here the part definitely gains
from being sung by an unorthodox choice of register. Her light, pearly soprano
points up the character’s innocence, and the contrasting gentleness
of her first entrance is most effective after the mezzo-soprano drama of the
preceding scene. She never seems to stand a chance against the appeals of
Pollione in the first scene, but she is wonderfully tender as she recounts
to Norma the beginning of her love for him in the great duet of the next scene.
In fact, the duets for Norma and Adalgisa are the finest vocal moments of
the set. The two voices seem to slot together magically so as to make them
almost indistinguishable and, in these cases, it doesn’t seem to matter
who is the soprano and who is the mezzo.
John Osborn, who impressed me hugely in the Netherlands
Opera’s I
Puritani, takes on Pollione. The tessitura holds no terrors for him,
but I couldn’t shake the doubt that he was making his voice a little
too light for the character. It is true that, as Bartoli points out
in the booklet notes, the tenor was a very different creature in Bellini’s
day, much lighter and more flexible, and Osborn’s interpretation is
in keeping with that. However, it just didn’t excite me. Pollione is
meant to be a daredevil seducer after all and, innately musical as Osborn’s
performance is, he never quickened my pulse in the way you get when you hear
the role sung, however inauthentically, by Corelli, Del Monaco or Pavarotti.
However, like so much else in this recording, you just need to get over your
preconceptions and leave them at the door. I may not enjoy Osborn’s
style as much in this recording, but I’ll happily admit that he is very
good at it, and the leggiero flexibility that he brings to the role
is certainly a refreshing change. He also uses his voice admirably to point
up the drama in different ways and different contexts. His entrance aria,
for example, is intimate and fairly light as he describes his dream of Adalgisa
in Rome, but when the cabaletta begins he finds a newly extrovert register
to his voice and ends that scene with a thrillingly heroic flourish. He also
rises to the challenge of the final scene, and his climactic duet with Norma
brings out the best in both characters, their antipathy finally turning back
into love and a recognition of what they have lost in one another. Qual
cor tradisti is fantastic, Osborn singing in an almost half-voice as he
contemplates the scale of what he has done, while Bartoli taps into all her
reserves of wounded humanity. Antonini then slows up dramatically for the
final ensemble, lending extra dignity to Norma’s plea for her children.
It’s a magnificent end to the piece, even if it lacks those cresting
top notes.
Michele Pertusi is an ideal choice for Oroveso. He has a rich, sonorous boom
to his voice which is notable on any occasion but especially so when he keeps
the company of period instruments and performance practice. He oozes authority
as the chief druid but is also able to evoke vestiges of sympathy for his
daughter’s fate in the final scene. Only occasionally does he sound
a little stretched in the lowest registers of the role, undoubtedly a result
of performing it at 430 Hz, notably lower than the standard modern concert
pitch of 440 Hz.
It’s worth saying a word about the edition, too, which has been scrupulously
researched by Maurizio Biondi and Riccardo Minasi. There aren’t many
major changes, but it restores a few passages here and there and cuts a few
extraneous ones that have crept in over the years. It’s all of a piece
with making this recording as close as it is possible for us to get (at present)
to how Norma must have sounded to Bellini’s own ears.
It will remain fundamentally a personal choice, however, as to whether this
is a Norma that you will want to live with. It will take a place on
my shelf as the “other” Norma, but for the sheer vocal
thrills that so excited me when I first got to know the opera, I will always
go back to Sutherland in 1964 or Callas in 1960: deeply flawed but still magnificent.
If Bartoli’s is the new norm for Norma then I can thank her for
bringing the opera back into the contemporary spotlight, but I can’t
stop myself from yearning for the great interpreters of the past who made
the role so immortally thrilling.
The presentation, by the way, is up to Bartoli’s usual very high standard:
there are four essays together with full texts and translations and a range
of colour photographs of the sessions and rehearsals, all packaged within
a special hard-back book which will look very handsome on your shelves.
Simon Thompson
The climactic duet brings out the best in both main characters, their antipathy
finally turning to love and a recognition of what they have lost in one another.
Qual cor tradisti is fantastic.
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