Gioachino ROSSINI (1792-1868)
Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816)
Figaro – Riccardo Stracciari (baritone)
Rosina – Mercedes Capsir (soprano)
Il Conte d’Almaviva – Dino Borgioli (tenor)
Bartolo – Salvatore Baccaloni (bass)
Basilio – Vincenzo Bettoni (bass)
Berta – Cesira Ferrari (soprano)
Fiorello – Attilio Bordonali (baritone)
An Officer – Aristide Baracchi (bass)
Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan/Lorenzo Molajoli
rec. 21 November 1927 (Overture) & 24 June-5 July 1929 in Milan
First issued on Italian Columbia D 14564/79.
Transfer by Mark Obert-Thorn
PRISTINE AUDIO PACO161 [64:49 + 60:59]
The set transferred here is actually the third set of this opera to have been recorded. The first was the legendary Phonotype set from 1917 with Fernando De Lucia as Almaviva, then came a second acoustic recording on domestic Italian HMV in 1919 with a cast almost totally forgotten except for the Figaro of Ernesto Badini. I have had the 78s of this third, and first electrical, recording for almost fifty years, but must confess that I had not played anything from it for decades, so was intrigued to see how it would hold up. After playing these CDs, I felt that its success was certainly mixed, and looked up the comments made in 1979 by Richard Osborne in Volume 1 of Opera on Record. There is nothing “mixed” about Osborne’s feelings: “a near disaster” is his description. This is surely over-egging the pudding. His first specific complaint is “a piano accompanies the recitatives” - what on earth could he expect in Italy (or indeed any country) in 1929? Fortepianos were unheard of in performance then, and even harpsichords were far from commonly used in baroque music, let alone 19th century pieces. It is simply pointless applying the expectations of today to a performance from decades ago with no attempt at historical perspective, so what would be a more reasonable view to take?
Undoubtedly the “star” name among the cast is Stracciari. He was in born in 1875, made his debut in 1899, and Figaro was one of his main roles. I have always loved Stracciari’s voice; in fact, I’m not sure that he doesn’t make my favourite baritone sound of all singers of the Italian repertoire. His voice is dark, rich, utterly steady and absolutely even in timbre with a splendid top and a resonant bottom. It also has the “blade” that is essential for the Italian repertoire. Although by the time of this recording he had a 30 year career behind him, there is no sense of vocal decline, and, indeed, he continued his career until the late-1930s and made occasional appearances until 1944. Despite all this, however, it must be admitted that his performance is far from the ideal. By the time of his career, the sort of baritone roles that required fleetness of coloratura had almost entirely disappeared from the repertoire, so he had neither the need nor the opportunity to hone his florid technique. His roles were essentially Verdi and verismo, with the odd non-florid bel canto role such as Alfonso in Favorita. I would be very surprised if he had any other Rossini role in his repertoire; certainly a lone Cenerentola in Paris in 1933 is the only other Rossini opera listed in the chronology given with the discography in Record Collector magazine in 1985. Today is something of a golden age for Rossini singing, and our expectations of this aspect of performance are immeasurably greater than they were in 1929 - though I can remember performances of Cenerentola at Covent Garden as recently as 1994 when François le Roux sang Dandini with fioriture of simply staggering incompetence. Stracciari sometimes simplifies the vocal line, sometimes guys it for “comic” effect or sometimes cheats by adding extra words. An example of this last is near the start of the Act 2 finale at the phrase “Qui più non ho che far”. On the word “non” Rossini writes a six note scale, which Stracciari sings as six repetitions of the word “non”. When he doesn’t do any of these things, the result is just smudged approximations of the notes, as in “All’idea di quell metallo” and “Dunque io son”. His performance of Barbiere’s greatest hit, the ubiquitous “Largo al factotum”, is well characterised without recourse to too much exaggeration or funny voices, but it is not as good as his acoustic Columbia from 1917. His performance generally is lively and involved, but it cannot really be considered a great success.
The Rosina is the Spanish soprano Mercedes Capsir - and straight away the more sniffy of modern critics would consign it to hell. The role was written for a mezzo, not a coloratura soprano, so she is not to be countenanced. It is undoubtedly true that it was written for mezzo, but was soon sung by sopranos, and I know of no evidence that Rossini himself was against its being sung by the higher voice. Certainly, he was happy to coach Adelina Patti in the role after the famous incident at their first meeting when she had sung a hugely over-ornamented “Una voce poco fà” and he had asked innocently “By whom is the aria that you have just let us hear?”. He was furious for days, but Patti came back repentantly, asked his advice, and the two became great friends. He accompanied her at the piano and after attending a Barbiere where she sang Rosina, declared her performance “adorable, adorable”. So, let’s not get too sanctimonious about a soprano Rosina. Having said that, Capsir, who was born in 1895 and so was 20 years younger than Stracciari, is certainly no Patti. Her coloratura is mostly very good, both fleet and articulated distinctly, though on odd unaccountable occasions she makes use of an intrusive “h”. The timbre as it comes across here is rather shrill at times, and some of the notes in alt have a distinctly steam-whistle quality, but it may well be that this is at least partly to be blamed on the carbon microphones of the period. As was standard up until modern times, she replaces “Contro un cor” in the lesson scene with a personal choice, here an adaptation of Mozart’s piano variations on “Je suis Lindor” for Baudron’s incidental music for Beaumarchais’s Le barbier de Séville - which seems rather appropriate. She also has to alter the vocal line for the soprano voice, sometimes by just transposing it up, at others by wholesale re-writing. The main problem, however, is that is just isn’t a particularly vivid or memorable characterisation of the part. It is by no means a bad performance, but compared to a Supervia, a Callas or a DiDonato it doesn’t really cut the mustard.
The best performance of the three principals is that of Dino Borgioli. He was a few years older than Capsir, having been born in 1891, and is the sort of sweet-voiced Italian lyric tenor who hardly exists anymore. Although his fioriture cannot approach the previous generation’s De Lucia or Jadlowker, or that of today’s Florez, Camarena, Brownlee and many others, it is perfectly acceptable, and he has a quality of sweetness and charm, almost vulnerability, which none of the others have, and which I find very appealing. He does simplify some of the more elaborate decoration, and “Cessa di più resistere” and its succeeding ensemble are, of course, cut, but his “Se il mio nome” is an exquisite performance, full of light and shade and with a decent trill (something possessed only by Jadlowker among those just mentioned). Fortunately he does not go over the top when in disguise, either. Osborne’s dismissal of Borgioli with the single word “undistinguished” is completely unfair.
Of the other parts, Baccaloni’s Bartolo is well characterised, and the set has the historical interest of containing Romani’s “Manca un foglio” which had been standard from the early 19th century until recent times as a replacement for Rossini’s original “A un dottor della mia sorte”. Obert-Thorn then kindly gives us the original Rossini aria sung by Baccaloni from a 1941Victor as an appendix. Bettoni’s Basilio is workmanlike (what a pity they didn’t get Tancredi Pasero, who also recorded for Columbia, to sing the part), but the Fiorillo and Berta (who surprisingly gets to keep her aria) are unexpectedly good. Molajoli’s conducting is also unexpectedly good, with crisp articulation, lively style and characterful playing, especially from the woodwind. The text is pretty complete, though there are quite a lot of cuts in the recitative (much of which is just gabbled through at an insane speed, though this does show how well the singers know their roles). The only section which is really reduced to shards is the Act 2 finale.
The transfer is excellent, as one would expect from this source. The surfaces are almost silent but there is no feel of high frequencies having been filtered out to accomplish this. There is some slight distortion towards the end of some 78 sides, but this is in the original recordings and beyond anything a restoration engineer can remedy. The voices come over very well.
This issue is probably, in all honestly, essentially of historical interest, but there are things to enjoy, especially from Borgioli, and it gives a window onto how the opera was performed in the days before Rossini became a “respectable” composer again. I believe that Mark Obert-Thorn intends soon to transfer the set of Rigoletto made shortly after this one with the same principals. I very much look forward to that - it is an opera much better suited to their strengths and should be well worth hearing in a transfer as good as this one.
Paul Steinson
Previous reviews: Ralph Moore
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Göran Forsling
