Giuseppe VERDI (1813-1901)
Otello - Tragic opera in four acts. (1887) (Highlights)
Twenty four major soloists featured
rec. various, 1914-1961
Contents list at end of review
MAGDALEN CD METCD 8019 [77.17]
Just occasionally the lot of the reviewer brings surprises. Often, like those
in life in general they arrive when least expected and are often those enjoyed
best.
I approached this CD with some trepidation. For a start I wondered how an
opera such as Verdi’s Otello could be split into highlights and
then I looked at the varied dates of the recordings. Yes, there are individual
items, scenes and arias that can stand alone. As for highlights of the whole
could that truly give the flavour of the composer’s penultimate work,
which in its entirety seems seamless - I had my doubts. Add the fact that
the cast was a mélange of singers recorded over nearly half a century
and incorporating recorded sources of acoustic, electric, mono and stereo
forms and I approached my listening assignment with misgivings, even apprehension,
that one of the greatest works of the lyric theatre might be demeaned or devalued.
However, by the arrival of the conclusion of Niun Mi Tema (Tr.13),
I was left nearly convinced that I had heard the work complete and had barely
noticed any differences in the recorded sound.
Before picking and commenting on individual items, I feel it appropriate to
put Verdi’s composition in some perspective. As a composer, Verdi was
always incisive, except perhaps in respect of his non-composition of an opera
based on Shakespeare’s play King Lear. Of his twenty-eight operas,
his first fifteen were composed in a period of ten years between 1839 and
1849, a period he talked about as his ‘Years in the galleys’.
After the great middle period trio of Rigoletto, Il Trovatore
and La Traviata, composed between 1851 and 1853, when financially secure,
his pace of composition slowed. He had talked to friends about retirement
after the writing of Un Ballo in Maschera in 1858 his twenty third
opera. However, if the fee and circumstances were right he was tempted, as
with LaForza del Destino for St Petersburg in 1862, Don Carlos
for Paris in 1867 and Aida for Cairo in 1871, his twenty-sixth opera.
After the composition of the Requiem in 1874, aged sixty-one, Verdi
entered his most arid compositional period. He travelled widely in Europe
conducting his works, particularly the Requiem. These trips took him
to London, Paris, Cologne and even Austrian Vienna. Everywhere he was fêted
as the leading opera composer of the day and national honours were bestowed
on him. Early in 1879, and for his own amusement, he composed a Pater Noster
for unaccompanied five-part chorus and an Ave Maria for solo soprano
and string orchestra. His long-time friend the Countess Maffei chided him
about his lack of operatic composition since Aida, by theneight
years in the past. Verdi responded “the account is settled.”
However, in her salon the literati of Milan would meet. These luminaries included
Ricordi, Verdi’s publisher, the conductor Faccio and Boito, the latter
a composer, writer and sublime opera librettist. Somewhere along the line
a plot was hatched to tempt Verdi to write an opera based on a Shakespearean
play, Othello. When Verdi visited Milan to conduct a charity performance
of his Requiem, Ricordi and Faccio, with the help of a dinner invitation
engineered by Verdi’s wife Giuseppina, broached the subject with the
great man. They suggested Boito as librettist and a work based on Shakespeare’s
play, a poet the composer revered. The next day Boito was brought to see Verdi
and three days later he returned with a detailed scenario - quick work unless
there had been prior plotting!
Whilst Verdi encouraged Boito to convert his synopsis into verse with the
words: “It will always be good for you, for me, or for someone else”,
he would not commit himself to compose. He was to prevaricate on ‘the
chocolate theme’, as it was called, for some time. When Ricordi became
impatient Giuseppina cautioned, behind the composer’s back, that whilst
he liked Boito’s verses he had not as yet clarified his ideas “and
without clear ideas he will decide now, or at any rate later, never to
compose again …leave things, at least for the moment, just as they are,
wrapping the Moor in as great a silence as is possible.”Ricordi
took the advice and when Verdi indicated he was ready to revise his Simon
Boccanegra of 1857 he enlisted Boito as librettist. The composer and his
new librettist got on well and the foundations were laid that brought Otello
to magnificent fruition at La Scala on 5 February 1887. It was Verdi’s
27th opera and was his first wholly new work for the stage for
eighteen years. The composer was then seventy-four years of age and really
did think that he had finished with operatic composition.
Verdi’s conception of Otello involved greater and significantly
different orchestral complexity compared to Aida (1871) and Don
Carlos (1867), its immediate operatic predecessors. It marks a major compositional
development. As Budden (Verdi - Master Musicians Series, Dent, 1985) puts
it: “the composer conceived it from the start in terms of whole acts
that proceed from start to finish without interruption.”The
drama moves by smooth transition from one event to the next, hence my doubts
expressed above. In his conception Verdi was greatly aided by Boito’s
taut libretto that reduced Shakespeare’s Othello by six-sevenths.
All this was done without losing its essence: the destruction of the erstwhile
hero by the genie of jealousy aided by the evil machinations of Iago. Boito
dispensed with Shakespeare’s Venice act and focused the whole of the
action in Cyprus.
As Budden notes: “the title role in Otello lies well beyond the scope
of the average operatic tenor.” It is unequalled in the Verdi canon
in the vocal demands it makes on the eponymous tenor. In reality the role
is beyond some of the very greatest of tenors. In the latter half of the twentieth
century a handful of big voices could do it a measure of justice on stage.
These included Giovanni Zenatello (Tr.9), Giovanni Martinelli (Tr.13), Ramon
Vinay (Trs.3,8), Mario del Monaco (Trs.1, 10), Jon Vickers (Tr.5) and Placido
Domingo whose inclusion here is precluded by copyright restrictions. All those
tenors, with the inevitable exception of Domingo, feature in this collection.
To them we add the outstanding tenor of the first half of the twentieth century,
Enrico Caruso. He, like his compatriots Bergonzi and Pavarotti, never sang
the role on stage (Tr.4). Caruso’s vocal strength, tone and characterisation
in that excerpt make me regret that omission from his extensive repertoire.
A pity that the restricted technology of the time did not allow for him that
which was provided by Decca for Pavarotti, whose recording of the opera was
taken from three concert performances.
The collection opens (Tr.1) with Del Monaco’s trumpeting tones in Esultate
as his boat lands from the storm-lashed sea. Taken from the recording conducted
by Karajan in 1960 and with the Vienna State Opera Chorus in full voice it
is fearsome if not subtle. Jon Vickers in the nearly contemporaneous recording
for RCA I find more appealing. The evil Iago on that recording was Tito Gobbi,
who I was privileged to see on stage. He sings the Credo in this collection,
but on an HMV studio recording issued on 78s as HMV 21071 not the RCA recording
alongside Vickers. His characterisation is biting in intensity if a little
raw in tone and not aided by a touch of distortion. Lawrence Tibbett, recorded,
in New York in 1939 (Trs.2, 6) is more subtle and covers his tone better.
Meanwhile Ramon Vinay in 1951 is alongside a mature-sounding Desdemona by
Eleanor Steber (Tr.3). Elsewhere the role of Desdemona is Leonie Rysanek (Tr.5)
with Jon Vickers. She was never my favourite in the role. I much prefer Tebaldi
alongside Del Monaco, heard here in a long excerpt from the end of act three
(Tr.10). This again is from the Decca recording of 1961 conducted by Karajan
and enjoys the best sound in the collection. The great act four demands of
the role are met by Rosa Ponselle in the Willow Song (Tr.11) and Elisabeth
Rethberg in the Ave Maria (Tr.12). It was particularly interesting to listen
to both and compare their tone, diction and characterisation.
I haven’t mentioned Toscanini who played in the La Scala orchestra at
the premiere. His 1947 recording of Dio Ti Giocondi from act three
(Tr.8) reflects Iago’s machinations to bring Otello to impute Desdemona’s
innocence as she pursues Cassio’s cause is frightening in its intensity.
Vinay is forceful but not matched by Toscanini favourite Herva Nelli.
Inevitably the sound quality varies, but Magdalen have done a wonderful job
in mitigating those differences. It is a collection I shall return to with
pleasure from time to time particularly when I get desperate about the scarcity
of voices like these in the present day.
Robert J Farr
The wonders of technology, allied to imaginatively mixed casting, give a wonderful
insight into Verdi’s penultimate opera alongside an enjoyable experience.
Contents List
Una vela .... Esultate .... Vittoria vittoria
Tom Krause; Nello Romanato; Aldo Protti; Athos Cesarini; Mario del Monaco
Vienna Philharmonic/Herbert von Karajan
recorded in Sofiensaal Vienna, May 1961
Inaffia L'ugola Brindisi
Lawrence Tibbett; Nicholas Massue; Herman Dreeben
Metropolitan Opera House Chorus & Orchestra/Wilfred Pelletier
recorded in New York, 3 May 1939.
Gia Nella Notte Densa
Eleanor Steber; Ramon Vinay
Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera Association/Fausto Cleva -
recorded in New York, 31 Dec 1951
Vanne... Credo in un dio crudel
Tito Gobbi
Philharmonia Orchestra/James Robertson
recorded at Number 1 Studio Abbey Road London, 14 Mar 1950
D'un uom che geme sotto il tuo disdegno ... Ora e per sempre
Leonie Rysanek; Miriam Pirazzini; Jon Vickers; Tito Gobbi
Rome Opera House Orchestra/Tullio Serafin
recorded at the Rome Opera House, 18 July-8 Aug 1960
Era La Notte
Lawrence Tibbett
Metropolitan Opera House Orchestra/Wilfred Pelletier
recorded in New York, 3 May 1939
O mostruosa colpa ... Si per ciel
Enrico Caruso; Titta Ruffo
recorded in New York, 8 Jan 1914
Dio Ti Giocondi O Sposo
Herva Nelli; Ramon Vinay
NBC Symphony Orchestra/Arturo Toscanini
recorded at NBC Studio 8H New York, 6-13 Dec 1947
Dio Mi Potevi Scagliar
Giovanni Zenatello; Bruno Reibold
recorded in Camden New Jersey, 21 Mar 1928
A terra e piangi ... to end of act
Mario del Monaco; Renata Tebaldi; Ana Raquel Satre; Fernando Corena; Nello
Romanato; Aldo Protti; Athos Cesarini
Vienna Philharmonic/Herbert von Karajan
recorded in Sofiensaal Vienna, May 1961
Piangea cantando ... salce salce - Willow Song
Rosa Ponselle
recorded in Camden, New Jersey, 23 Jan 1924
Ave Maria
Elisabeth Rethberg
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra/Ettore Panizza
recorded New York, 24 Feb 1940
Niun Mi Tema
Giovanni Martinelli; Alessio de Paolis; Nicola Moscona; George Cehanovsky
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra/Ettore Panizza
recorded live at the Metropolitan Opera New York, 4 Dec 1941.
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