Giuseppe VERDI (1813–1901)
Un ballo in maschera (1859)
Giuseppe Di Stefano (tenor) – Riccardo; Tito Gobbi (baritone) – Renato; Maria Callas (soprano) – Amelia; Fedora Barbieri (mezzo) – Ulrica; Eugenia Ratti (soprano) – Oscar; Enzo Giordano (baritone) – Silvano; Silvio Maionica (bass) – Samuel; Nicola Zaccaria (bass) – Tom; Renato Ercolani (tenor) – A Judge/A Servant of Amelia
Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milano/Antonino Votto
rec. 4–9 September, 1956, Teatro alla Scala, Milan
NB: auditioned as 24-bit FLAC download
Full score, vocal score and Italian-English libretto provided online
XR Remastering Ambient Stereo
PRISTINE AUDIO PACO187 [50:52 + 79:46]
When I surveyed this opera, I lamented both some vocal failings and the lack of stereo sound; obviously Pristine’s remastering here will have gone a long way to remedy the latter but can, of course, also serve to highlight the former. Having said that, a cast like this can hardly fail to delight, despite any minor flaws.
I quote here from that survey:
“[A]ll four principals here, for all that they are impassioned and vivid in their acting, evince their usual vocal flaws and must all yield to better, more complete Verdian singers elsewhere: Callas mixes velvety tone and trenchant lower register with some strident top notes, Barbieri is stentorian and her registers are not fully integrated, Di Stefano often sounds sharp and yelps a bit, and Gobbi, while displaying his habitual and formidable insight and artistry, also strains on top notes…Having said that, the odd flap on a top note is as nothing to Callas’ emotional involvement and I still want to own this for her unique plangency and psychological insight.”
There is no question but that Pristine’s remastering has improved this beyond recognition giving it a space, depth and effulgence it never had in the EMI CD issue. Interestingly, it seems to mitigate one of the flaws of both this and the live recording, rendering Eugenia Ratti’s Oscar less shrill and making her more appealing. I am the first to endorse the claims of Gavazzeni as an unfailingly stimulating conductor but I do not think, in the live La Scala recording from the following year, he is so markedly superior to Votto here. He has been accused of being routine, but as far as I can hear, he is lively enough in ensemble and otherwise simply gives his singers the scope to sing out – and this
is probably why Callas stuck by him. Amelia is not a role which stayed long in her repertoire; apart from some ventures into it in her student days and the incorporation of two of the arias in later concerts, she learned the role for this recording and the subsequent season in Milan but thereafter neglected it. Amelia’s entrance is delayed in this opera compared with that of the heroines of most other Verdi operas but thereafter Callas dominates. She lives Amelia’s anguish in the gallows scene, making heart-wrenching use of portamento and lower register such that a little flap and shrillness on top notes are forgivable.
Di Stefano had a boyish charm which suited the role of Riccardo but he is sometimes quite hard and nasal of tone here. He is at his most winning in the second scene of Act I in the arias “Di' tu se fedele“ culminating in a splendid top B and “È scherzo od è follia“ – horribly marred, incidentally, by Ratti’s thin, acidic top C-sharp. He makes a fine job of the centrally important and beautifully written recitativo "Forse la soglia attinse" and aria “Ma se m'è forza perderti” investing them with great emotion despite some persistent nasality. His death scene is similarly deeply felt and I love the way Callas lightens and reduces her voice to suggest tremulous terror at the start.
Gobbi, for all his verbal and expressive acuity, sounds dry of tone compared with Bastiannini but where he scores is in imagination and expression when he portrays the anguish of the supposedly cuckolded husband, beginning with the way he inflects her name, “Amelia”, when she is unveiled and delivering a gripping “Eri tu”, deploying both the bite and velvet in his multi-coloured baritone to moving effect, crumpling in grief at its close.
Giulietta Simionato live at La Scala is an improvement over the stentorian Fedora Barbieri but that is not to say that Barbieri is anything less than satisfying. She sings through the role in straightforward manner, exploiting her tough lower register to impressive effect, even if she not especially glamorous or inventive. Enzo Giordano is an attractive Silvano and the conspirators are expertly sung by the dark-voiced Maionica and Zaccaria.
I am inclined to think even more highly of this than I did in my survey when its virtues are so manifestly enhanced by Pristine’s sound treatment.
Ralph Moore
