Small signs tell big tales. The first thing one perceives
while looking at the cover are four photos of Beverly Sills and none
of the other soloists. And the article that takes first place in the
booklet is devoted to the lady. Offenbach comes second. Now there is
a reason for that decision. This is the last of the official recordings
that uses the old Guiraud-version. Since then every recording has used
the Oeser edition (or a mixture of Guiraud and Oeser) that contains
so much more fine music while putting Mr. Guiraud’s contributions in
the dustbin. Of course the clever recording companies put some of the
wonderful non-Offenbach music on a separate track so that we are not
without the magnificent septet. That means too that modern versions
use 3 instead of 2 CDs. Therefore this is not the version purists or
people wanting all of Offenbach’s music will go for in the first place.
The ‘raison d’être’ of this reissue is the demand
that has long been in and around New York for the reissue of all of
Beverly Sills on CD. And it is not a bad reason. Her Olympia gives us
the necessary trills and embellishments though surprisingly less than
Sutherland does for Decca. What strikes one is the warmth of tone, the
caressing of phrases in an aria that nowadays, due to the influence
of modern producers, is often sung all too mechanically with notes cut
short so that ‘those dumbos in the public’ finally understand this is
a doll and not a girl singing. With Sills’ very human interpretation
however one understands far better Hoffmann’s strange infatuation. As
Giulietta she succeeds in convincing us of the courtesan’s playfulness
and it is pity that she couldn’t sing the big aria Oeser exhumed. Antonia
is a natural for the American soprano. She clearly beats Joan Sutherland
(in her droopy phase) and Edita Gruberova (too stiff) who tried the
same feat. Indeed she is the only one who can hold her own against Renée
Doria, Vina Bovy and Géori Boué in the old authentically
French set of 1948. No mean feat.
The rest of the cast is not up to Sills’ level. I clearly
remember the devastating review the dean of Italian critics, Rodolfo
Celetti, wrote on Stuart Burrows when the set first appeared. While
damning all shrieking and yelling verismo tenors Celetti wrote that
the appearance of Mozart tenors like Burrows in a passionate role like
Hoffmann is just as bad and wrong. On renewed hearing this strikes me
as somewhat less than fair. The Welsh tenor is no Domingo (Decca and
DG) and definitely no Neil Shicoff (EMI) whose neurotic (and well-sung)
portrait is still the best around. But Burrows is no passive Don Ottavio
either. He brings beauty of tone, has fine diminuendos, though he sometimes
sings flat above the stave and he is clearly helped by the mike (but
so undoubtedly is Sills) as the tenor sounds stronger than the voice
I heard at the ROH. Norman Treigle takes on the four bad guys and though
he works really hard in giving us all possible interpretative details,
one tires of his lack of beauty in the voice, of the throaty delivery.
In the house he could hold his own as he was a formidable singing actor
but for records one needs an acting singer. While Sills is better or
on a par with all her many successors Treigle’s competitors sing on
another level. Sam Ramey (Philips) and above all José van Dam
(EMI) have given us suave, threatening extremely well sung villains
which will remain landmarks. Nothing but praise for the John Alldis
Choir and the LSO conducted by Julius Rudel. The conductor has a feeling
for well-constructed scenes, always choosing the right tempi, imbuing
the opera with fire without unnecessarily driving his singers to the
wall.
When this set appeared almost 30 years ago on ABC,
that company had a well-deserved bad reputation for murky sound which
almost destroyed any possible competition with the majors. The good
news is that there was nothing wrong with the original master tapes
as this reissue from Deutsche Grammophon in the Westminster legacy series
(of which it originally never was part) proves.
Jan Neckers
Olympia – Giulietta – Antonia
– Stella – Beverly Sills (soprano) 