This is an admirable
2 CD selection of Nicolai Gedda’s recordings
from the mid 1950s; Nimbus have transferred
the items from the original LPs. Regis
issued a similar recital in 2005, but
restricted to 1 CD, but in his Gramophone
review John Steane was critical of the
transfers. This new set from has the
advantage of being more expansive and
has fine transfers done by Nimbus.
The selection enables
us to hear Gedda when he was at his
freshest, combined with his strongly
developed musical intelligence. Gedda
did not have the most beautiful tenor
voice of his generation, but he knew
how to use it. This is shown in the
opening item, Je crois entendre encore
from Les Pecheurs de Perles,
where Gedda combines a beautiful legato
with a finely inflected vocal line to
give us an aria that we never want to
end. Judging by this disc he seems to
have been at his best in quiet lyrical
pieces. His account of Du pauvre
seul ami fidele from La Muette
de Portici is softly beautiful.
The first disc concentrates
on French opera and Gounod gets the
lion’s share with around 60 minutes
of music. One of the frustrations of
this set is that there is no detailed
explanation about where the items came
from. So you have to do some research;
I am pretty certain that the two extracts
from Faust come from the Cluytens
complete recording with Victoria de
Los Angeles as Marguerite, and the Mireille
extracts from Cluytens’ complete recording
with Janette Vivalda in the title role.
We are treated to over 20 minutes of
Mireille extracts including what
seems to be a concerted, and overblown,
finale. This highlights another drawback
of the set: there are no texts and no
details synopses so that you have no
idea what is going on in Mireille
unless you know the opera or do yet
more research.
As regards Gedda’s
companions on these extracts, De Los
Angeles makes a charming Marguerite
and Janette Vivalda has a typical French
soprano voice - think Mady Mesplé
- with a tight vibrato which makes for
a distinctive and authentic account.
Gedda is on prime form,
singing with a warm, golden voice and
convincing you by artistry alone that
this is music worth listening to. Personally
I would rather have had less Gounod
and a little more of some other French
composers, but that is entirely down
to personal taste.
In the excerpt from
Massenet’s Werther you get the
suspicion that Gedda needs to make quite
an effort to give the voice the heft
it needs at the climaxes. This is something
which recurs in the long extract from
Boris Goudonov - this is taken
from Issay Dobrowen’s complete recording
with Boris Christoff in the title role
- where we get the Polish scene with
the duet between Gedda’s Dmitri and
Eugenia Zareska’s Marina. But this is
a small complaint when confronted by
the beauty and ardour of Gedda’s performance.
I would have liked
to hear more from Glinka’s Ruslan
I Lyudmila where we get only a short
extract from Act 1. The final Russian
item is Lensky’s aria from Act 2 of
Yevgeny Onegin. This is taken
from the 1953 recital under Alceo Galliera
which was extensively mined for disc
1. For me Gedda remains one of the great
Lenskys and this recording is a precious
record of a fine role.
The Italian items are
all beautifully taken. Gedda’s voice
is warm without having the Mediterranean
glow which is ideal in this repertoire.
But few tenors had his intelligence
and way with the voice so that his account
of the familiar arias is undoubtedly
welcome. Also, you can add to this the
lesser known gems from Cilea’s L’Arlesiana
and Ponchielli’s La Gioconda.
The set finishes with
some extracts from Viennese operetta.
This was repertoire at which Gedda excelled
partly because he never takes the music
for granted and performs it with all
the seriousness it needs. The results
make Lehár’s music seem greater
and finer than it really is; performing
operetta like this is almost a lost
art.
Notwithstanding my
complaints about the lack of documentation
and texts, this is a highly recommendable
recital. It gives us a vivid glimpse
of one of the 20th century’s
most versatile tenors.
Robert Hugill
see also review
by Goran Forsling
NIMBUS PRIMA VOCE NI 7943/44 
[75:16
+ 70:13] 
