When an artist of the eminence of Plácido Domingo announces the arrival of
a major new voice, it behoves us to pay attention. Caballé heralded the
arrival of just such a singer in Dinara Alieva, so I hoped that Domingo had
got it right regarding the young Albanian tenor Saimir Pirgu, whose debut
recital this is.
Unfortunately I must demur and ascribe Domingo’s enthusiasm to wishful
thinking. The first thing I noticed was the pronounced beat in Pirgu’s
vibrato, followed by a noticeable change of gear as his tenor works its way
up past G flat, through the passaggio, into an edgy, more constricted zone
of vocal production. Given that he is billed as a lyric tenor, I wondered
why he had chosen to begin this recital with one of Verdi’s more strenuous
and less melodious tenor arias from “Simon Boccangera”; it was only when I
decided to test my disappointment by comparison with no fewer than six other
tenors singing the same aria, that I was able to pinpoint Pirgu’s
issues.
In the hands – or rather, vocal chords - of greater singers, this aria,
with its declamatory introduction and concluding cantilena is a very testing
piece and permits its singer to shine. Pirgu cannot rival Carreras for the
beauty of tone or intensity of feeling which transforms it into something
special; nor does Speranza Scappucci’s serviceable conducting work the kind
of magic that Abbado and the La Scala orchestra weave in that famous
complete recording from 1977. Turning to Martinelli in the classic, vintage
live performance from 1939 made me realise how small-scale Pirgu’s singing
sounds; despite the size of his voice, Martinelli scales down his vibrato
and volume for “Cielo pietoso” in a way quite beyond Pirgu’s monochrome
account. Domingo himself in 1973 also shows how it’s done, the warmth and
evenness of his sound combined with the flexibility of Gavazzeni’s beat and
the idiomatic plasticity of his phrasing again emphasising the ordinariness
of what we hear from Pirgu and Scappucci. Giuseppe Zampieri live in 1961 is
all baritonal heft and grandeur, Campora in the 1957 studio recording with
Gobbi is far more authentically Italianate and impassioned and, finally,
Bergonzi in 1951, shortly after his switch from baritone, is all patrician
elegance, with an attractive, fast vibrato in his tonal production which
never approaches the kind of bleat sometimes evinced by Pirgu and whose
delivery of the text is so much more subtle and touching.
I have spent some time comparing versions of this one, opening aria, as it
serves as a kind of paradigm for my response to virtually every subsequent
item here. The cynical auditor might heave a bored sigh upon seeing that the
second track is yet another “Che gelida manina” but that ennui will turn to
a less forgiving reaction upon the realisation that Pirgu’s account is
little better than what one might expect from a bawling B-list tenor.
Comparison with Pavarotti’s matchless version for Karajan is telling:
Pirgu’s bleat obtrudes, the top C is nasty and his tone loses quality as he
goes both up and down; there is no magic at all in the concluding “Vi
piaccia dir”, which should be sung in a melting
mezza voce; he
simply has not got the requisite control over his pianissimo and his Italian
sounds stilted. Oh dear.
Fortunately, things look up once Pirgu moves into his true Fach, which is
the lighter, lyric French genre typified by the Gounod arias. Unfortunately,
his French suffers from the usual problem with vowels (he sings “Solut” for
“Salut”), the inability to avoid sounding the nasal “n” in words such as
“presence”, "resplendit” and “mon”, and solecisms like the unvoiced
sounding of the “s” in “tes yeux” as “tes sieux”. However, he sings much
more winningly here when under less pressure, providing a good top C for
good measure. His top notes are inconsistent: we hear an excellent top B in
both “La mia letizia” but the same note is uncomfortable in “È la solita
storia”.
The latter aria is one of my touchstones for a great lyric tenor voice and
Pirgu’s account lags far behind those by Björling, Schipa, Carreras,
Villazón and Kaufmann; his tone is not full and sweet enough to do it
justice. Anything which requires more heft immediately puts a strain on his
voice, hence the Strauss aria from “Der Rosenkavalier”, briefly murderous as
it is, exposes his weaknesses. His excursions into Verdian roles such as
Alfredo and the Duke of Mantua are less successful than his French forays,
because he lacks the weight and “ping” for Verdi. Similarly, his singing of
the tenor’s showpiece aria from “Lucia di Lammermoor” again invites
invidious comparison with Pavarotti; he sounds at times to be labouring
where he should soar.
I do not think we are hearing a fully formed artist here, nor one whose
technique is reliably solid.
The recording is rather too close to convey the ambience of a stage and
tends to emphasise flaws which might go unnoticed there. A full libretto
with English translations of the Italian and French texts is most welcome,
but I cannot in all honesty say that I am likely to turn to this recital
when I want to hear these arias again.
Ralph Moore
Contents
CILEA È la solita storia 'Lamento di
Federico' (
L'Arlesiana)
DONIZETTI
Tombe degl'avi miei … Fra poco a me ricovero ...Tu che a Dio
spiegasti l'ali (
Lucia di
Lammermoor)
GOUNOD L'amour, l'amour
... Ah, lève-toi soleil (
Roméo et Juliette)
Salut! Demeure
chaste et pure (
Faust)
MASSENET Pourquoi me
reveiller (
Werther)
PUCCINI Che gelida manina
(
La Bohème)
STRAUSS Di rigori armato il seno
(
Der Rosenkavalier)
VERDI O inferno! ... Sento
avvampar nell'anima (
Simon Boccanegra)
La mia letizia
infondere (
I Lombardi)
Lunge da lei … De’ miei bollenti spiriti
(
La Traviata)
Ella mi fu rapita!
(
Rigoletto)
O figli … Ah, la paterna mano
(
Macbeth)
Oh! fede negar potessi (
Luisa
Miller)
Quando le sere al placido (
Luisa Miller)
La
donna è mobile (
Rigoletto)
