Rita Gorr sings French Opera
Orchestre du Théâtre National de l’Opéra/André Cluytens
Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire/Georges Prêtre
rec. 1959-1962, Salle Wagram, Paris
GUILD HISTORICAL GHCD2411 [79:49]
Rita Gorr (1926-2012) was the stage name of Marguerite Geirnaert,
born into a working-class family in the industrial town of Zelzate, near Ghent,
Belgium. After leaving school she worked as a nurse. The family who employed
her noticed the quality of her singing and paid for her first lessons. After
vocal studies in Ghent and in Brussels she won first prize at the vocal competition
of Verviers in 1946, making her professional debut at Antwerp as Fricka in
Die Walküre the same year. She was a member of the Strasbourg Opera
from 1949 to 1952, winning another first prize at the vocal competition of
Lausanne in 1952 and making her Paris debuts that year at the Opéra-Comique
as Charlotte in Werther on 6 March, and at the Paris Opéra on 31
October as Magdalena in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Her Paris
repertoire expanded rapidly to include Dalila in Samson and Delilah,
Venus in Tannhäuser, Carmen and Amneris in Aida, Eboli in
Don Carlos and Marguérite in La damnation de Faust. She
premiered at La Scala in 1958 as Santuzza and Kundry, in 1959 at Bayreuth
as Ortrud, at Covent Garden in 1959 as Amneris, in 1960 at Vienna as Fricka,
Waltraute and Brangäne and at the Met from 1962 to 1966 encompassing the Verdi
mezzo repertoire and Dalila.
It was as Amneris in Solti’s 1962 recording of Aida opposite
Leontyne Price in the eponymous role and featuring Jon Vickers as Radames
that I first came across her (Decca 460 765-2). It was probably her debut
appearance as Amneris at the Met that led to her recording the role with Solti.
The Met tended to take their casts to Rome for annual visits and record for
the RCA label. The recording was an early fruit of the short-lived liaison
between RCA and Decca that saw exchanges of contracted artistes between the
two with the former benefiting from the superior recording technology of the
latter. By that time the Italian trio of Stignani, Simionato and Barbieri
were either retired or nearly so, whilst Shirley Verrett and Cossotto had
not emerged as recording artists. Rita Gorr filled the bill for Solti without
being wholly convincing to my ears, being far more successful as Ortrud in
Lohengrin, opposite Sándor Kónya and Lucine Amara, under Erich Leinsdorf
in 1965, as well as a 1959 version from Bayreuth conducted by Lovro von Matacic.
Other recorded roles included Fricka, the latter at Bayreuth under Hans Knappertsbusch,
and, notably as Dalila.
With a vocal compass of two octaves her voice was difficult to define and
the upper reaches could rattle the recording microphone. In these recordings,
from sessions at the Paris Salle Wagram, in its resonant acoustic, her voice
is set well back. She is distinctly stretched at times in the 1961 recordings
of arias from Iphigénie en Tauride (trs. 2-5) whilst the aria from
Orphée et Euridice from 1959 gives an altogether better representation
of her qualities (tr.6). Her dramatic capabilities are heard to good effect
in the extracts from Cherubini’s Médée (trs.7-11) whilst in
La damnation de Faust the music sits nicely on the rich middle of
her voice where the richness of her timbre is very evident (Trs.12-13). That
rich middle is also well heard in both arias from Samson et Dalila
that was, perhaps, her ideal calling card (trs.15-16).
Robert J Farr
Previous review:
Ralph Moore
Track-listing
Christoph GLUCK (1714-1787)
Alceste
1. Divinités du Styx [5:08]
Iphigénie en Tauride
2. Ô toi, qui prolongeas mes jours [4:27]
3. Ô malheureuse Iphigénie (Choeurs René Duclos) [4:01]
4. Je cède à vos désirs - D'une image, hélas! trop chérie [4:08]
5. Non, cet affreux devoir - Je t'implore et je tremble [4:08]
Orphée et Eurydice
6. Malheureux, que je fais? - J’ai perdu mon Eurydice [5:33]
Luigi CHERUBINI (1760-1842)
Médeé
7. Vous voyez, de vos fils, la mère infortunée [4:10]
8. Perfides ennemis qui conspirez ma peine* [4:38]
9. Chers enfants, il faut done que je vous abandonne* [6:07]
10. Du trouble affreux qui me dévore [4:20]
11. Eh quoi! Je suis Médée [5:03]
Hector BERLIOZ (1803-1869)
La damnation de Faust
12. Autrefois un Roi de Thulé [5:21]
13. D’amour l’ardente flamme [7:26]
Jules MASSENET (1842-1912)
Werther
14. Werther! Werther! . . . Ces lettres . . . ah! je les relis sans cesse
[6:07]
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
Samson et Dalila
15. Printemps qui commence [4:46]
16. Samson, recherchant ma presence [3:28]
|
Support us financially by purchasing
this from
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|