Comparison recordings:
Leinsdorf, Nilsson,
Bjoerling, Tebaldi; Rome Opera Orchestra RCA CD [ADD] RCD2-5932
Karajan, Ricciarelli, Domingo,
Hendricks, Raimondi, VPO [ADD] DGG 423 855-2
Mehta,
Sutherland, Pavarotti, Caballé, Ghiaurov, LPO. [ADD] Decca
414 274-2
Erede,
Borkh, Del Monaco, Tebaldi, St. Cecilia SO
[ADD] Decca 433 761-2
Chailly,
Urbanova, Volonté, Fontosh, Milan SO [Berio completion only]
Decca 475 320-2
The idea that a ramrod
German conductor like Erich Leinsdorf* could conduct Puccini
- would even want to conduct Puccini - would seem almost
laughable. Leinsdorf was a “perfect tempo” conductor who
widely preached** that once a conductor finds the correct,
optimum tempo for a work it isn’t necessary to change it
from first note to last. I once watched and heard him destroy
the Schubert Ninth Symphony by acting the human metronome
and producing an absolutely flawless metrical performance
with no emotion whatsoever.
One thinks of Puccini operas
as full of arcing romantic phrases, sighing rallentandos,
surging accelerandos, hesitant pianissimos;
one assumes that the tempo should be difficult even to define,
let along keep constant. Leinsdorf proves otherwise, explaining
simply that Puccini was a good craftsman who knew how to
ask for what he wanted and doesn’t need his music recomposed
by the conductor.
That being said, there
is nothing at all eccentric, or cold, or methodical about
Leinsdorf’s conducting here. His tempi are about what everyone
else uses, but he achieves a richer sense of drama.
The assumption has always
been that death stopped Puccini from finishing Turandot,
but the truth is that he quit working on it because he couldn’t
figure out how to end it. It wasn’t a lack of time, but
a lack of a plan. Just as Steven Spielberg loves portraying
on the screen little boys in terror and in jeopardy in Puccini’s
most popular operas, Manon Lescaut, La Bohème
and Tosca Puccini portrayed fragile women destroyed
by love. Turandot does that, too, right up to the
death of Liù, where he stopped composing. He had always
known how the opera was to end, had obviously intended to
break out of the mold and show a strong, cruel woman made
human by love, but when he came right down to it, he couldn’t
do it, he didn’t know how.
The usually heard conclusion
by Franco Alfano, the last 23 minutes of the opera, is based
on Puccini’s sketches, of which there was apparently a huge
amount. But apart from some Puccini tune fragments, it is
noisy, bland, devoid of any spark of genius (from Alfano).
Better than nothing, until recently it has always been recorded,
and it does contain many nice moments and it does carry
the story on to the end. Only Karajan is able to conduct
the Alfano ending and make it seem like a step up, like
a truly building, growing, successful climax. How he accomplishes
this is not apparent, but I suspect he does just a little
re-composing, or at least re-orchestrating, and maybe everybody
should do that. The new Berio completion, also based on
Puccini’s sketches, is perhaps more sophisticated, more
dramatically justified, but it is not necessarily more satisfactory
overall, only much quieter.
Turandot needs the finest
recorded sound possible to say nothing of some of the finest
voices. My first love affair with the opera, the Decca LP
recording with Tebaldi and Del Monaco was to date the finest
sound Decca had then achieved and still sounds very fine
in CD reissue. While Tebaldi is just a hair’s thickness
more secure for Erede than with Leinsdorf, against Domingo,
Pavarotti, and Bjoerling, Del Monaco hasn’t a chance.
The Leinsdorf recording always sounded very good in its
LP and CD incarnations, but this new SACD puts it head and
shoulders ahead of everyone else. The DSD remastering means
that even the CD tracks on the Hybrid SACD sound significantly
better than the previous RCA CD issue - the bass drum just
wasn’t there at all - or anybody else’s CD issue.
Of course if you’re a fanatic
like me, you must have them all. Barbara Hendricks and Renata
Tebaldi both sing so beautifully I defy anyone to choose.
Joan Sutherland does a better job with the role of Turandot
than anyone would expect, and Mehta was a superb Puccini
conductor - Caballé doesn’t have the high notes and Mehta
covers for her skillfully; his Tosca is probably
better than Leinsdorf’s in both performance and sound. Karajan’s
conducting is extremely fine, especially in the final act,
but the incredible tension and drama which Leinsdorf achieves
is a landmark in opera recordings, not just Turandot
recordings. A Los Angeles radio commentator*** pointed out
that the photographs from the LP album of this Leinsdorf
recording showed everyone looking “scared to death”; this
issue chooses other photographs in which people look more
relaxed.
If you’re searching for
the perfect “Signore ascolta!” besides Tebaldi and Hendricks
you might want to investigate Masako Deguci on Naxos and the soprano in an “Inspector Morse”
television episode, whose name I was never able to discover.
Paul Shoemaker
*Born Erich Landauer in
Vienna in 1912, schooled
at the Vienna Academy, a U.S. citizen from
1942, he died in the U.S. in 1993. This recording and Madama Butterfly
with the Rome Opera and the Mahler Third Symphony
with the Boston SO are generally considered his greatest
achievements. To these I would add the [monophonic] Mozart
Jupiter and Beethoven Eroica Symphonies with
the Pittsburgh SO. He was the first to record Rachmaninov’s
Symphonic Dances and also the first to record the
complete Mozart Symphonies (including a terrific
#39) with the Royal PO, on Westminster.
**Erich Leinsdorf, The
Composer’s Advocate, A Radical Orthodoxy for Musicians,
1981. ISBN 0-300-02427-4, p 148. My copy is signed by the
author.
***Jim Švejde, radio station
KUSC
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Princess
Turandot - Birgit Nilsson, (soprano) 
[54.06 + 60.55] 
