Even in a period of
a dearth of tenors Marcello Giordani’s
rise from professional debut in 1986
to La Scala two years later, was meteoric.
He has gone on to appear, and be in
regular demand, at the world’s leading
opera houses. In this period I only
caught up with him via a couple of radio
broadcasts until his premiere studio
recording as Gaston in the Philips 1998
recording of Verdi’s ‘Jerusalem’. This
was the composer’s re-write of ‘I Lombardi’
done for his first shot at the honey-pot
that was the Paris opera scene in the
1840s. The recording was issued in Autumn
2000 and I found Giordani’s fresh lyric
tone interesting, if at times unremitting,
in a role that lends itself to agonised
fortissimos. Of course, his Gaston was
sung in French as are a number of the
arias featured here. These are the long
‘Asile héréditare’ from
Rossini’s final opera (tr. 1), ‘Ah!
mes amis, quel jour du fête!’
from Donizetti’s ‘La Fille du régiment’,
notorious for its high Cs (tr. 2), Ferrand’s
‘Un ange, une femme inconnue’ by the
same composer (tr. 3) and the ‘Flower
Song’ from ‘Carmen’ (tr. 8). These are
sung in reasonably idiomatic French
albeit in a distinctly Italianate style.
Giordani’s attack on the high notes
is fearless and always in full voice,
that is without recourse to head tone.
If he had modulated the volume and given
greater grace to the phrasing earlier
in the Rossini aria, he might not have
lost tone on the climactic note. He
is equally fearless in tackling the
notorious series of high Cs in ‘Ah!
mes amis, quel jour du fête!’,
but he is uneven in vocal emission and
too forceful of tone in between them,
and by the time of the final high, at
3:49, his voice evinces an all too evident
beat and an unpleasant bleating effect.
Nor is his rendering of the first of
Gualtiero’s two arias from Bellini’s
‘Il pirata’ (tr. 4) pleasing to my ears.
Again a distinct beat is present when
the top of the voice is pressured. That
being said, Giordani’s singing is distinctly
better than Bernabe Marti’s on the only
available studio recording of the opera
(EMI). Giordani sang the part to Decca’s
house soprano Renée Fleming (Imogene)
at the Met in 2002. This was broadcast
to the UK under the last season of the
Texaco sponsorship. In this day and
age, I don’t suppose the Texaco would
envisage a recording without the less
appropriate, but populist, Bocelli in
the part. In the more traditional Italian
repertoire of Verdi’s ‘I Lombardi’ (tr.
9), ‘Luisa Miller’ (tr. 10) and ‘Il
Trovatore (trs. 11-12), Giordani gives
a strong enough showing, particularly
with some elegant and graceful phrasing
at the start of the arias. The downside
is his tendency to up the volume and
forget the graceful phrasing as the
piece proceeds. He does however hit
a good top-note at the end of ‘Di quella
pira’ (tr. 11).
The recording of the
orchestra and chorus is bright, clear
and forward, whilst Giordani’s voice
is in its own rather more resonant acoustic
as seems to be the case with so many
operatic recordings these days. The
booklet has a good track-related synopsis
and prints the words of the arias with
an English translation. Despite my criticisms,
it is good to have, particularly at
Naxos’s price, such an interesting and
varied disc devoted to a tenor who is
appearing regularly at the world’s foremost
opera houses. However, I suggest it
is best digested in small ‘snacks’ rather
than at one sitting. For those living
in the U.K. who wish to hear him live,
I see that he is billed to sing Enzo
Grimaldi in two concert performances
of Ponchielli’s ‘La Gioconda’ at The
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London,
in September 2004.
Robert J Farr
Orchestra and Chorus of the Bellini Theatre,
Catania/Steven Mercurio