The Melik-Pashayev
recording of Ivan Susanin or A Life for the Tsar,
as it’s rather better known in the West, has been available
on at least two labels of late – Preiser and Great Hall MVT.
Both were double CD sets but Naxos’s budget price transfer
comprises three discs. The second disc is short and the third
includes five outstanding examples from the opera derived
from recordings made in 1913, 1923, 1940 and 1950. Whether
this will entice rather depends on price brackets and respective
transfers as the extracts, however distinguished they may
be as examples of Glinka on disc, will not be enough to tip
any balance.
This is a much
admired set and I admit to admiring some of it, indeed much
of it, but not all of it. With Melik-Pashayev at the helm
– except for the Epilogue, which was recorded three years
later under Nebolsin – we are guaranteed an intense and driving
exploration of the orchestral strands. He’s a first class
conductor, ensuring good balances and even admitting the less
than stellar 1947 engineering he invariably produces direction
of arresting control. The chorus is an incisive and powerful
body; their fugal entries in the Act I introduction are suitably
vibrant. The recording naturally fell prey to the kind of
brazen one dimensionality that afflicted so many contemporaneous
Soviet recordings. It’s a fact of life and not much can be
done now to limit its more intransigent brashness.
The soloists were
among the pre-eminent few of the time. Mikhailov takes the
role of Susanin. I know that many swear by him but though
the voice is big and characterful I find it insufficiently
supported. His great qualities were of projection of nobility
and gravity and that he most certainly does. Technically however
he can be fallible. Georgi Nelepp is the spirited Sobinin,
vibrant and tense with an intense vibrato. His range is extensive
and exciting and he swoops through the registers with few
weaknesses, though I happen to find some of his more athletic
ascents in the final scene of Act I rather like the recording
– brazen and in poor taste. Still he and Mikhailov make a
good tonal match – the razory incision of the tenor and the
emollient patrician bass. Note too the excellent young women’s
chorus and the gutsy orchestral playing in their scenes.
I was surprised
to read in the notes that the Vanya of Yelizaveta Antonova
was only forty-three at the time of the recording. Her mezzo
is edging toward the matronly and there are intrusive breaths
and registral breaks; more damaging a slack-ish vibrato, especially
in Act III’s duet between her and Susanin. Much preferable
is the Antonida of the esteemed Natalia Spiller, whose ardent
intensity lights up the Romance in Act III, and she proves
a commanding and technically superior exponent. Some of her
music has however been excised and it ought to be pointed
out that this pruning of the text is really quite extensive.
I don’t have a score or timings to hand but at least 35-45
minutes of music were excised, not least to conform to prevailing
political orthodoxies. Incidentally the very small role of
Sigismund is taken by Fyodor Svetlanov, father of Evgeny.
The Epilogue under Nebolsin is rousing, to say the least,
though there have certainly been more dignified Coronations
on disc.
The appendix contains
a well-engineered 1913 Antonina Nezhdanova and the Act III
duet between Vanya and Susanin. Here Sokolova and Reizen prove
superior to their counterparts in the complete set. Rosvaenge
is rather clarion and exaggerated in his excerpt, Zbruyeva
interesting to hear in her 1913 double-sided extract but not
so impressive technically. Chaliapin is magnetic; the London
band accompanying is not.
The notes cover
biographical and other matters with concision. As is usual
now from this source there is a synopsis, and no libretto.
Ward Marston has done the remastering honours though we don’t
hear of his source material. It certainly sounds suitably
strident and present, with minimal distractions. I don’t have
the competition to hand so can’t make comparative listening
choices. Three discs at Naxos’s price, of course, is still
three budget priced discs so many will relish the opportunity
to hear this post-War set and the ancillary material as well.
Jonathan
Woolf
see also
Review
by Goran Försling
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Ivan
Susanin - Maxim Mikhailov (bass) 
