I once owned a previous issue (long deleted) which featured this live
Glyndebourne 1954 recording, but replaced it when Kent Nagano’s 2 CD
set of Busoni’s two
commedia dell’arte operas became
available in 1993. The sound on the old issue was decidedly mono and
inferior to Nagano’s digital traversal, but this newly re-mastered
reissue gives a much better impression even though the placing of voices and
instruments is very forward. Although it is described as a
‘live’ recording, there is no evidence of any audience - was it
perhaps recorded under studio conditions in the opera house itself? The
rather dry acoustic would lead one to conclude this.
When Busoni wrote
Arlecchino, he intended it to be one half
of a double bill of one-act operas based on plots derived from the Italian
commedia dell’arte. He wrote his own texts in German, and
clearly took the project very seriously - as indeed did Mascagni when he
wrote his ill-fated
Le maschere in the same vein - giving the
characters more real depth and not just treating the plot as mere
buffoonery. Unfortunately for him, he chose as the theme for his second
opera
Turandot, and a few years later Puccini with his very different
style came along to set the same subject in a manner which comprehensively
consigned Busoni’s effort to oblivion. The only thing about
Busoni’s
Turandot, if anything, which people remember nowadays
is his peculiar delusion that
Greensleeves was a Chinese folksong.
Nagano coupled his recording with
Turandot, but it has to be said
that Busoni’s opera is never going to establish itself in the
repertory given the competition. The oddest thing about
Arlecchino is
the fact that the title role is given to a speaker, not a singer - which
Busoni clearly intended to highlight the fact that he stands outside the
action as an ironical commentator as well as separating him out from the
rest of the cast.
The first thing that must be observed about Pritchard’s pacing
of the opera is that he takes very nearly ten minutes less time over the
score than Nagano does. This is often to the advantage of the music, but the
slower pace and more recessed recording of the Nagano issue gives a less
relentlessly driven impression than the older live performance. For example,
the opening narrative by Arlecchino is delivered with more sense of the
words by Ernst Theo Richter for Nagano than the rather mechanical
rattling-off of the text by Kurt Gester for Pritchard. At the same time it
cannot be denied that Pritchard’s approach delivers considerable
dividends in keeping the music lively. Oddly enough Archiv shows the
Pritchard performance in the EMI reissue as being ten minutes
longer
than Nagano; I am certain this is simply a mistake. Nevertheless I feel that
Nagano’s more considered approach pays dividends in its treatment of
Busoni’s more lyrical sections of music; the approach of Pritchard
underlines rather the influence that the music clearly had on Kurt Weill -
and, oddly enough, Walton’s
Façade in its treatment of
rhythmically spoken recitation over instrumental accompaniment - did Walton
even know the score? - Busoni was very rude about the young Walton’s
music in 1920 when he was sent some of his early compositions. The love
scene, for example, is delivered by Pritchard at a quickly flowing tempo but
the music is more luxuriantly and romantically treated by Nagano.
The singing on the Glyndebourne set is interesting in particular for
featuring the voices of Ian Wallace and Sir Geraint Evans in their younger
days. Wallace, nowadays remembered principally by British listeners for his
singing of Flanders and Swann’s
Mud and his appearances on
radio game shows such as
My Music, shows a more serious side of his
personality and sings with real involvement - he was of course a
Glyndebourne regular at this date, and can be heard in Rossini operas
recorded at around this time as well as in Sargent’s later
‘Glyndebourne’ sets of Gilbert and Sullivan. Evans sounds very
bass-oriented in this 1954 performance, evincing some surprising sense of
strain in the higher baritone register which would certainly not be present
in his later performances and recordings. On the other hand, as one would
expect from such accomplished character singers, both he and Wallace deliver
the text with point and humour - indeed, with greater definition than the
German singers in Nagano’s version.
As the two young lovers, we have here Murray Dickie and Elaine
Malbin. Dickie was a Scottish singer who based his career in Vienna as a
permanent member of the State Opera company there; his German delivery is of
course impeccable, and he has a less strenuous and more impetuous voice than
Nagano’s Stefan Dahlberg who seems to have been engaged principally
for his stentorian Kalaf in the accompanying
Turandot. Dickie’s
honeyed tones suit the role well, but one has reservations about the rather
matronly Malbin, an American soprano who performed only rarely outside the
States. She is no match for Suzanne Mentzer on the Nagano set, but on the
other hand the part is not large - neither of the lovers appear until half
way through the opera - and this is not a problem that need loom large in
consideration.
Nagano’s version no longer seems to be currently available on
disc, any more than is a 1994 version conducted by Gerd Albrecht on the now
defunct Capriccio label. The latter takes even longer over the score than
Nagano, and a full quarter of an hour longer than Pritchard; it is more
closely recorded than Nagano, but is no longer to be had except as a
download. The main objection to this new reissue of the 1954 recording must
be that we are given no texts, translations, or indeed anything other than a
listing of the tracks - and in such a complex plot this really requires an
effort by the purchaser to obtain such; although the score is available on
line, I could find no text or translation available for download; I used the
translation provided with the Nagano set for the purposes of this review.
The EMI reissue of this same recording is shown by Archiv as including full
text and translation, and this would inevitably lead to a firm
recommendation for
that version of the reissue; but it is only
available as part of a double album coupled rather oddly with
Cornelius’s
The Barber of Baghdad, and if the latter is not
required then there is no currently available option to this Andromeda CD. A
Naxos reissue of this Glyndebourne performance is only available for
streaming and download, and is in any event not available worldwide because
of copyright restrictions. What we really need is a reissue of the more
modern Nagano or Albrecht recordings; in its original issue, the Nagano
included a very substantial booklet containing full essays on the music as
well as the text with translations into English and French. And while
we’re at it, we also need Nagano’s complete recording of
Busoni’s masterpiece
Doktor Faust restored to circulation - the
heavily cut CD versions currently available conducted by Boult and Leitner
are no substitute at all.
Of all recordings of
Arlecchino the Nagano probably remains
the best representation of Busoni’s score - Albrecht is really rather
too slow and laid back despite some excellent singing, Pritchard really
rather too fast - but this Glyndebourne performance has more sheer spark and
dramatic life than either of its rivals. If you can survive without texts or
translations, and just want a recording of
Arlecchino without
coupling, then you may well find it the most enjoyable of all.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
