MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


Buy through MusicWeb from £7.00 postage paid World-wide.

Musicweb Purchase button

 


Tito Gobbi operas arias, rec. 1942-53.
NIMBUS PRIMA VOCE NI 7946
[76:10]



Tito Gobbi
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756–1791)

Don Giovanni:
1. Deh vieni alla finestra [2:12]
Le nozze di Figaro:
2. Non più andrai [3:38]
3. Aprite un po’ [2:51]
Gioacchino ROSSINI (1792–1868)

Il barbiere di Siviglia:
4. Largo al factotum [4:54]
Gaetano DONIZETTI (1797–1848)

L’Elisir d’amore:
5. La donna è un animale … Venti scudi! [7:34]
Giuseppe VERDI (1813–1901)

Don Carlos:
6. Convien … Per me giunto [3:46]
7. O Carlo ascolta … Io morrò [4:12]
Otello:
8. Vanne … Credo in un Dio crudel [4:26]
9. Era la notte [2:56]
La forza del destino:
10. Urna fatale [3:37]
La traviata:
11. Di Provenza il mar [4:49]
Rigoletto:
12. Pari siamo! [4:12]
Un ballo in maschera:
13. Alzati ... Eri tu [7:16]
Ruggiero LEONCAVALLO (1858–1919)

Zazà:
14. Buona Zazà del mio buon tempo [2:05]
15. Zazà, piccolo zingara [2:38]
Pagliacci:
16. Si può (Prologue) [7:58]
Giacomo PUCCINI (1858–1924)

La fanciulla del West:
17. Minnie, dalla mia casa [2:48]
Francesco CILEA (1866–1950)

L’Arlesiana:
18. Come due tizzi accesi [4:07]
Tito Gobbi (baritone)
Nicola Monti (tenor)(5); La Scala Orchestra/Umberto Berrettoni (1, 6, 7, 14, 15, 17, 18); Philharmonia Orchestra/James Robertson (2, 3, 8, 10); Orchestra/Alberto Erede (4, 9, 16); Rome Opera Orchestra/Gabriele Santini (5); Philharmonia Orchestra/Walter Susskind (11, 12); London Symphony Orchestra/Warwick Braithwaite
rec. July 1942 (1, 6, 7, 14, 15, 17, 18); 2 February 1948 (4, 9, 16); 14 March 1950 (2, 3, 8, 10); 24 September 1950 (11, 12); 30 September 1950 (13); June 1953 (5)

Some singers impress through large voices with thundering fortissimos and brilliant top notes, others with the extreme beauty and seamless legato. There’s a third category with less than first class voices but instead deep musicality and the ability to make the music – and the texts! – come alive. Tito Gobbi definitely belongs to this third category. His was not a particularly big instrument. At climaxes his voice did not expand effortlessly to that all-embracing sound that made for example Leonard Warren or Ettore Bastianini so impressive. Instead one hears how the voice strains and loses quality and the uppermost notes tend to become constricted, sometimes verging on ugliness. This can even be heard on his earliest recordings from 1942 when he was not yet 30. For this reason I could make a long list of baritones from roughly Gobbi’s time and up to the present day that were/are his superiors when it comes to vocal brilliance. I won’t list them but I think anyone with some experience of listening to opera and song recordings from the last 65 years or so will be able to make a similar list. Whereas many of these other baritones have already fallen more or less into oblivion or will do in the future, I am sure that Gobbi will always remain alive through his recordings – even when there is no one left who has heard him in the flesh.

Listening through the five quarter hours of music on this disc, recorded when he was still young or at the most early middle-aged, one hears evidence en masse that here is/was a great interpreter of music, not just a singer. Of course it is unfair to under-estimate his qualities as a singer. The Don Giovanni serenade, The Don Carlo arias, Iago’s Era la notte and Germont’s Provence aria from La traviata are all masterly examples of great singing with smooth, well equalized and extremely beautiful tone and exquisite phrasing. The Traviata aria in particular is psychologically superb: when faced with Alfredo’s anger and despair and realizing that Violetta has left him for another, Germont normally – on stage as well as on records – sings his aria as a feature number, directed towards the 1500 people in the audience. Gobbi’s Germont is confident: he puts his arm around Alfredo’s shoulder, doesn’t raise his voice but talks soothingly about the beauty of the landscape in Provence to cool his son’s temper. But here, as well as in the other arias mentioned, he stays mainly within a dynamic range from pianissimo to mezzo forte: the scope of a very lyrical Lieder singer. In more dramatic and expressive arias, where he also incorporates nuances from forte to fortissimo the tone loses some of its attraction. This matters little for listeners who are after the truth behind the music and the texts. Evil, anger, despair, contempt, defiance is seldom represented with honeyed voice and expressionless features. What makes Gobbi stand out is his ‘oral face’; it is easy to imagine what he looks like when impersonating Iago.

His Figaro – both Mozart’s and Rossini’s – is a lively and good humoured character. Listening to his three arias (tr. 2-4) one instinctively sees his warm personality – though spiced with both irony and calculation. Iago’s Credo is a masterly portrait of malice, even morbidity. Gobbi sings, or so it sounds, through the corner of his mouth. A chilling experience. His Rigoletto is tortured and suffering, his Renato in Un ballo in maschera is venomous but reveals so many mixed feelings in an unusually nuanced portrait. Tonio’s prologue from Pagliacci is one of the most grateful scenes for a dramatic baritone and few latter day baritones have managed to be so expressive. Simon Keenlyside on last year’s Gramophone awarded recital is perhaps the one who has come closest. Surrounding the prologue are a handful of relative rarities. The Fanciulla and L’Arlesiana arias are expertly sung but it was the two Zazà arias that really caught my attention. His vocal qualities include the perfect legato – but his fortes were pinched even in 1942. Musically these arias are notably fine. These and a couple of others from this opera suggest that it would be well worth reviving once in a while.

Tito Gobbi went on to make complete recordings of many of the roles represented here (Barbiere, Don Carlos, Otello, Traviata, Rigoletto, Ballo and Pagliacci), and they are indispensable. It is however great to have these arias recorded when he was at his freshest vocally and already deeply inside the characters.

The transfers of the original 78 rpms are excellent and one can admire the young Alberto Erede’s vivid handling of the orchestral introduction to Pagliacci. Alan Bilgora’s liner notes are highly readable and are complemented by an extensive bibliography.

As with other recent issues in the "Prima Voce" series this disc should be an obligatory purchase for anyone seriously interested in great singing.

Göran Forsling

 

 

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.