Following hard on the
heels of their very welcome Elijah,
also reviewed
by me, comes Divine Art’s restoration
of the 1927 British National Opera Company
recordings of "Cav and Pag"
sung naturally enough in English in
the occasionally wincing words of Frederic
E Weatherly. The BNOC rose from the
ashes of Beecham’s Opera Company, which
had collapsed in 1920. It fulfilled
an important role in British operatic
life during the relatively short time
it survived bringing opera to the provinces
and giving a good launch-pad for a number
of important singers and conductors.
It also attracted some eminent figures
to perform in its ranks – Melba, Teyte,
Hislop and Edward Johnson among them.
Recorded complete in 1927 with a first
class cast, this is a most worthwhile
resurrection though its appeal will
be specialist. Genuine Italianate voices
are, with the exception of Nash, in
short supply and the ethos is, inevitably
given the drawing room tendencies of
the libretto, very English indeed. Though
the orchestra has been praised in Cavalleria
rusticana I have to say that the
strings sound very thin and few and
employ a continuous portamento that
is unusually obtrusive and pervasive
even for the time. The anonymous London
orchestra for the 1930 Elijah
was immeasurably superior. That said
some of the woodwind playing is characterful
and impressive and the conductor, the
Australian Aylmer Buesst keeps things
cracking on.
[By the way, is anyone going to revive
the Violin Concerto that Victor Buesst
(b. 1885?) wrote for Anatole Melzak?
Was Victor the brother of Aylmer? I
have a violin and piano reduction of
the score which was played by Dan Godfrey
in Bournemouth.]
Nash is ardent, Schipa-like
in his beauty of tone, though even he,
a master of perfect diction and with
a strong Italian training, is confounded
by the translation in the Siciliana.
There’s a credible and creditable choral
balance. May Blyth is a successful Sanuzza,
with an attractive command if just a
touch pinched at the top. Marjorie Parry,
Barbirolli’s first wife, is an immediately
attractive though light-ish mezzo and
manages to bring a certain element of
flightiness to her role. The great Elijah
Harold Williams is on hand as Alfio.
His diction was probably second only
to Nash’s amongst the cast members but
he was less of a stage animal. His forte
was oratorio and also ballads and he
can sound rather wooden here - which
is a pity especially as he doesn’t seem
in his best voice (he’s better in Pag
and better still in 1927’s Beecham Messiah
– Williams was very busy in the recording
studios that year). The little known
Justine Griffiths fares well as Lucia;
she’s rare on record and little biographical
information has seemingly survived.
Above all however it’s Nash who rises
to the top by virtue of his virility,
his elegant and passionate declamation
and his sheer beauty of tone. His peak
is, in English, Mother, that wine
burns me.
As with the companion
opera the full English text is printed
but there are some blips with the tracking
(for example No.7), which is not properly
synchronized with the text.
I Pagliacci saw
Eugene Goossens II (also known as Senior
to distinguish him from the rest of
the Goossens dynasty) assuming the conductorial
role. He has the same small body of
slithery strings at his disposal and
the same characterful winds. Williams
is in better voice as Tonio but the
focus falls inevitably on the histrionic
figure of the Frank Mullings. He was
by all accounts a great actor-singer
and Beecham for one was almost in awe
of him, an almost unparalleled position
for the singer-disdaining Baronet. The
records however leave a very mixed impression;
certainly of great personality and penetration,
but the voice itself is utilitarian
and indeed decidedly un-beautiful. In
his notes Andrew Rose tries to mount
a defence of Mullings by claiming that
his records "more than most"
suffer from being transferred at the
wrong speed – but this surely affects
anyone from that period and the evidence
of his recordings is that the voice
was not an instrument of any appreciable
beauty at all. The vocal production
as such is frankly is all over the place
even if his self-belief is palpable,
the stage magnetism implied, though
to be taken on trust.
Miriam Licette, a singer
I greatly admire, is an excellent but
very English Nedda. Nash appears once
more as Peppe but there’s much less
for him to do and, for once, he seems
to lack his usual tonal allure. It’s
really only in the upper register that
he becomes the characteristic Nash –
in his exchanges with Licette’s Columbine
– and displays something of his tenore
di grazia. The young Dennis Noble
makes a good showing as Silvio.
As for technical matters
there is some blasting along the way
and Williams suffers most from this
recording problem. I have neither of
these sets on 78 but did dig out an
extract from the Leoncavallo on Pearl.
Pristine Art has managed to reduce surface
noise to a bare minimum and retain a
reasonable sense of openness. But listening
to the no-nonsense Pearl I did rather
miss that degree of treble openness
at the top and would have welcomed a
touch of surface noise to get it. A
personal choice naturally, and many
allergic to shellac crackle will enjoy
the rather more constricted sound here.
Good cast lists and a libretto complete
another welcome restoration from Pristine
Audio. Why not Nash and Licette in Wallace’s
Maritana next?
Jonathan Woolf
National Opera Company/Eugene Goossens 
