Giuseppe VERDI (1813-1901)
A Tribute to Giuseppe Verdi - Selected recordings 1914-1962
Various singers, conductors and orchestras
Contents and artists list at end of review
rec. 1914–1962. ADD
PREISER RECORDS PR93484 [73:20 + 77:19]
Depending on which way you look at it, this is either a refreshingly eclectic
Verdi compilation or a rather cynical cobble-job trying to cash in on the
bicentenary of his birth. As ever, the truth is to be found somewhere in between
but I do think it shockingly cavalier of Preiser to go to the trouble of commissioning
some funky artwork, biographical data and a lively introductory essay by Laura
Wagner-Semrau, both in German and translated into English, only to provide
no information regarding the individual tracks beyond the singers and the
label and year of issue of the recording concerned. Thus, unless, like me,
you fancy yourself as a bit of a Verdi recording aficionado and can make some
informed guesses, you do not know if the aria, duet or ensemble in question
is from a live radio broadcast, a recital album or a complete studio recording
or who is conducting which orchestra. Furthermore, I am dubious whether some
of the scanty information provided is correct; I am sure that the track 4
“Macbeth” aria is not from the RCA studio recording conducted by Leinsdorf
or from any of the live broadcasts about that time; it is obviously from earlier
in Leonard Warren’s career when his baritone was younger, fresher and more
tenorial. He concludes with the free top A for which he was famous, yet his
tone still contains traces of an oddly constricted quality.
So, those complaints aside, what do we have here? All the recordings were
made between 1914 and 1962, are thus conveniently out of copyright and must
therefore now be regarded as historical - so don’t by any means expect uniformly
brilliant sound. They include some outright classics of the gramophone with
which every Verdi enthusiast will be familiar: the duets from “Otello” by
Caruso and Ruffo, from “Don Carlo” by Björling and Merrill and from “La forza
del destino” with Rosa Ponselle and Ezio Pinza, the latter in surprisingly
good sound for 1928, both voices emerging as true, pure and warm. There are
several recordings of arias which are celebrated tours de forces,
such as Tito Gobbi’s incomparable “Pari siamo”, Callas’ lapidary “Sempre libera”
from her only complete studio recording on Cetra, and a stunning “Mercè, dilette
amici” by a young Joan Sutherland. There are two of the finest ensembles ever
recorded in the 1939 “Plebe! Patrizi! Popolo!” with Tibbet, Bampton and Martinelli,
and the “Bella figlia dell’amore” quartet from the complete 1950 “Rigoletto”
with Warren again – the only artist to feature twice on these two discs –
and Jan Peerce in tremendous voice.
The bulk of these recordings is from the 1940 and 1950s; one is acoustic,
some electronic 78s, some mono, some stereo – but you have to use your ears
to guess as Preiser’s not telling. They present an incongruous range of sound
quality, dynamic range, volume and acoustic which will leave you fiddling
with the remote control with every change of track. The 29 tracks encompassing
fourteen operas – that is about half Verdi’s output and those generally considered
to be his major works – are represented as are 38 different voices: ten sopranos,
four mezzo-sopranos, thirteen tenors, eight baritones and three basses; 23
of those singers – nearly two-thirds - are Italian; I wonder what the proportion
would be today if we tried to assemble a similar anthology? What are decent
but decidedly also-ran-category singers such as Giacinto Pradelli, Carlo Tagliabue,
Margherita Grandi and – dare I say it, in this particular context? – Alfredo
Kraus doing in such august Verdian company? The cartoonish but quite eye-catching
cardboard packaging with its splashy green lettering and a booklet insert
successfully shakes off the Preiser label’s rather staid and conservative
image.
For those unfamiliar with some of the singers here such as Anita Cerquetti,
recordings like her opening aria from “Nabucco” will be a revelation; in her
very short career she was spoken of in the same breath as Tebaldi and Callas,
and it is easy to hear why. Grandi’s account of the Sleepwalking Aria from
“Macbeth” is impressive in its way, especially the astounding pianissimo high
D upon which she exits, apparently produced almost closed-mouthed, Calvé-style,
but comparison with Callas’s famous version makes Grandi sound rather ordinary
and even matronly of tone compared with the “voice of a she-devil” Verdi required.
Alfredo Kraus really milks his “Parmi veder le lagrime” at too slow a speed
and it’s a relief to move from his reedy, plaintive musings to Jan Peerce’s
much more rakish, Italianate Duke in the splendid quartet I have already mentioned.
Bergonzi sings aristocratically and deploys an elegant trill in his aria from
“Il trovatore”, then another true Italian tenor and Toscanini’s favourite,
Aureliano Pertile employs his powerful top B and C to great effect in “Di
quella pira”.
On the second CD, we first hear an oddly restrained and somewhat distantly
recorded Giulietta Simionato in an excerpt presumably taken from the complete
1960 Solti recording - as we hear a snippet sung by the unmistakable but uncredited
Bergonzi - then another aria from that opera by Giuseppe Di Stefano in finest
voice, clearly from a radio broadcast before an enthusiastic audience. Yet
another great Verdi tenor, Franco Corelli, demonstrates the knife-edge vibrancy
– the vibrato had still to settle in the mid-fifties – and splendid ring of
his top B-flats in the immensely taxing aria from “La forza del destino”.
Cesare Siepi’s majestic, saturnine bass is ideal for delineating King Philip’s
anguish and Stignani shows off her extraordinary range in Eboli’s “O don fatale”
from “Don Carlo”. The switch to stereo for Del Monaco’s “Celeste Aida” is
welcome; he, too, shows off his tremendous B-flats and sheer volume of sound.
As always when I listen to Zinka Milanov, an artist much revered by generations
previous to mine, I find her patchy: to me her Aida mixes melting passages
with others which sound somewhat swoopy, unsteady and too mature. The inclusion
of so early a recording as the “Otello” duet is justified by its extraordinary
intensity and the supreme vocalisation of the ideal partnership of Caruso
and Ruffo, later emulated and almost equalled by Björling and Merrill in the
same music on the RCA recital from which their “Don Carlo” duet discussed
above was taken.
The inclusion of Melchior is a little surprising given his indelible association
with Wagner, but he sang Verdi’s dramatic tenor roles and although I don’t
much appreciate “Otello” in German, it serves to illustrate both his aptitude
for the role and how Verdi was for decades sung mainly in translation in opera
houses across Germany. Especially striking are the long crescendo phrase beginning
at 2:51, Melchior’s soft top G and, in common with every other tenor in this
collection, his capability of delivering whopping top B-flats – in the end,
a note more frequently important to the big-voiced Verdi tenor than the elusive
top C.
We conclude with two more indisputably great Verdi voices: Renata Tebaldi’s
prayer aptly confirming Toscanini’s verdict on her as having “una voce d’angelo”
and Taddei’s pungent baritone whooping it up as Falstaff in the Honour Monologue
– but in rather poor sound.
In many ways, this sort of thing has been done before - not least by Membran
themselves in their “Quadromania” series. For all its vocal splendours, this
bargain vintage compendium can also be seen as a lament for a lost age and
tradition; we shall certainly never again hear the likes of most of these
singers.
Ralph Moore
Detailed Contents List
Giuseppe VERDI (1813-1901)
A Tribute to Giuseppe Verdi - Selected recordings 1914-1962
CD1
1. Nabucco: Ben io t´invenni... Anch´io dischiuso [7:15]
2. Ernani: Gran Dio!... O de´ verd´anni miei [4:29]
3. Macbeth: Una macchia è qui tutt´ora [7:39]
4. Macbeth: Pietà, rispetto, amore [3:28]
5. Luisa Miller: O fede negar... Quando le sere [4:32]
6. Rigoletto: Pari siamo [3:59]
7. Rigoletto: Ella mi fù rapita... Parmi veder le lagrime [5:45]
8. Rigoletto: Un dì se ben... Bella figlia dell´amore [5:20]
9. Il Trovatore: Stride la vampa [2:54]
10. Il Trovatore: Ah si, ben mio [3:03]
11. Il Trovatore: Di quella pira [3:04]
12. La Traviata: Ah fors´è lui... Sempre libera [9:26]
13. La Traviata: Parigi, o cara [3:35]
14. I Vespri Siciliani: Mercè, dilette amiche [3:31]
15. Simon Boccanegra: Plebe, patrizi, popolo [5:09]
Anita Cerquetti (soprano) (1); Carlo Tagliabue (baritone) (2); Margherita
Grandi (soprano) (3); Leonard Warren (baritone) (4); Giacinto Prandelli (tenor)
(5); Tito Gobbi (baritone) (6); Alfredo Kraus (tenor) (7); Jan Peerce (tenor),
Leonard Warren (baritone), Erna Berger (soprano) and Nan Merriman (mezzo)
(8); Feodora Barbieri (mezzo) (9); Carlo Bergonzi (tenor) (10); Aureliano
Pertile (tenor) (11); Maria Calla (soprano) (12); Amelita Galli-Curci (soprano)
and Tito Schipa (tenor) (13); Joan Sutherland (soprano) (14); Lawrence Tibbett
(baritone), Giovanni Martinelli (tenor) and Rose Bampton (soprano) (15).
CD 2
1. Un Ballo in Maschera: Re dell´abisso [6:11]
2. Un Ballo in Maschera: Forse la soglia... Ma se m´è forza perderti
[5:27]
3. La Forza del Destino: Alzatevi... La Vergine degli angeli [4:34]
4. La Forza del Destino: La vita è inferno... O tu che in seno [6:49[
5. La Forza del Destino: Urna fatale [5:16]
6. Don Carlo: È lui desso... Dio, che nell´alma infondere [7:02[
7. Don Carlo: Ella giammai m´amò... Dormirò sol [7:40]
8. Don Carlo: O don fatale [4:35]
9. Aida: Se quel guerrier... Celeste Aida [4:24]
10. Aida: Qui Radames verrà... O patria mia [6:35]
11. Otello: Si pel ciel [4:45]
12. Otello: Dio mi potevi [4:48]
13. Otello: Ave Maria [4:47]
14. Falstaff: L´onore, ladri! [4:17]
Giulietta Simionato (mezzo) (1); Giuseppe Di Stefano (tenor) (2); Rosa Ponselle
(soprano) and Ezio Pinza (bass) (3); Franco Corelli (tenor) (4); Ettore Bastianini
(baritone) (5); Jussi Björling (tenor) and Robert Merrill (baritone) (6);
Cesare Siepi (bass) (7); Ebe Stignani (mezzo) (8); Mario Del Monaco (tenor)
(9); Zinka Milanov (soprano) (10); Enrico Caruso (tenor) and Titta Ruffo (baritone)
(11); Lauritz Melchior (tenor) (12); Renata Tebaldi (soprano) (13); Giuseppe
Taddei (baritone) (14).
Various conductors and orchestras.
rec. 1914 – 1962. ADD
PREISER RECORDS PR93484 [73:20 + 77:19]
For all its vocal splendours, this bargain vintage compendium can also be
seen as a lament for a lost age and tradition.
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