After
an enormously successful career at the Met, Rosa Ponselle
called it a day in April 1937 when she was just forty.
Only months before that she had married and soon after
the final performance the couple moved to Hollywood,
where she had many friends. In 1939 RCA Victor recorded
eight songs with her, six of which were published at
the time, but even though she was immensely popular there
was no continuation of the contract. In 1940 they moved
to Baltimore where she built a house named ‘Villa Pace’.
In 1951 they divorced and Ms Ponselle had a period of
depression but began to work with what was later to be
known as the Baltimore Civic Opera. She still sang and
record companies were alerted to contact her with propositions
for further recordings. She was persuaded by her old
company RCA Victor but refused to go to New York. Instead
RCA sent equipment and technicians to her ‘Villa Pace’,
where during five busy days in October 1954 they recorded
more than fifty songs. Sixteen of these were issued on
an LP entitled Rosa Ponselle Sings Today and in
1957 another sixteen titles were issued under the header Rosa
Ponselle in Song. But after that the company lost
interest in the material, and the master tapes were sent
to her. The unissued titles were later released on the
ASCO and FJS labels. The master tapes for the two RCA
Victor LPs were given to the Library of Congress by Rosa
Ponselle and they were used by Ward Marston for this
issue. The remaining tapes have however disappeared and
also the acetate records that were made for test listening.
Those were, luckily, copied before disappearance and
this third-generation source is all that Marston has
had to work with. They are of course inferior in sound
quality but still fully acceptable as documents of what
the legendary soprano sounded like when she was 57.
As
can be seen from the header it was a catholic selection
of songs that Ponselle presented to the recording team,
but apparently all of it attracted her and inspired her
to involved singing – even of what in some cases can
be labelled as ditties.
Ponselle
recorded extensively during a period of ten years but
after the Wall Street Crash she made no recordings until
the Hollywood sides. Her old acoustic and electrical
records have always been admired as some of the best
soprano singing ever reproduced and I lavished praise
on a couple of volumes issued by Naxos not so long ago.
Since for some reason I hadn’t heard her later efforts
I was very curious to find out if there had been a decline
in her vocal armoury during the intervening years. To
be honest there is very little to complain about. It
may be argued that the voice has aged, but I think that
is inevitable and playing at random some titles with
other outstanding sopranos, recorded with roughly the
same intervals, confirmed this very clearly. What had
not changed was her superb breath control, her expression,
her marvellously controlled pianissimo and the crystal
clear high notes. Moreover it seems that her lower register
had expanded and taken on a contralto quality. In A
l’aimé (CD 1 tr. 2) both extremes are clearly illustrated
within a few bars. Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Nightingale
and the Rose is splendidly vocalised, but the supreme
achievement is Schubert’s Ave Maria with beautiful
violin introduction and obbligato. Here Ponselle’s tone
is almost instrumental without in any way sounding mechanical.
The version with only piano was never published at the
time but that was hardly for musical reasons – I presume
that RCA Victor didn’t trust the record-buying public
to invest in two versions of the same song. In Arensky’s On
Wings of Dreams her portamento is beautifully judged.
The
rest of the first CD is occupied by the second of the
two LPs issued with material from the ‘Villa Pace’ sessions.
Another fifteen years had passed – unnoticed? No, not
quite. Isn’t the voice a little darker? Isn’t there more
effort? Hasn’t the vibrato widened? The answer to all
three questions has to be: Yes! But it is still a fine
instrument: her phrasing and expression is as musical
and sensitive as before. What cannot be denied is that
the highest notes tend to be disjointed from the rest
of the voice. There isn’t the same support as in the
rest of her voice register and the effect is that she
sometimes sounds – well, not out of tune but there is
a lack of overtones that gives the same effect as when
hearing some soprano records from the acoustic era. My
wife reacted more negatively than I did but after more
than 1½ hours of concentrated listening she admitted
that ‘one gets used to it’. Once one has accepted the
sound per se and can focus on what is most important – the
songs and the readings of them – one is in for some highly
inspiring moments. The validity of the readings is never
in question and there is a special treat in discovering
little unheard-of gems as well as old friends being refurbished
by Ponselle’s deeply felt advocacy. Plaisir d’amour always
pleases and the lively Jeune fillette is sung
with a girlish freshness that totally belies the singer’s
age. Debussy’s Beau soir is sensitively phrased
and the brilliance of Ponselle’s upper register is stunning
in Delibes’s Bonjour, Suzon. Paisiello’s Nel
cor più is lovely and the Tosti songs, too often
vehicles for leather-lunged tenor equilibristics, are
here treated as art songs with all the care she would
lavish on a Schubert Lied. Ideale is a dream
of sensitivity. A real find was Sadero’s Fa la nana,
bambin, a lovely lullaby, tenderly sung with a pianissimo
end that is a thing of wonder.
On
CD 2 one can admire her regal singing of Lully and the
nuances in the Persico song. Chausson has rarely been
so marvellously sung and Trunk’s Mir träumte von einem
Königskind is inward and beautiful, making amends
for her less than steady and a shade glaring rendition
of Brahms’s Von ewiger Liebe.
Erlkönig is well characterized with an impressive contralto war tot! at
the end, and Beethoven’s In questa tomba oscura is
noble and solemn – more in line with Beethoven’s intentions
than Chaliapin’s famous recording (HMV DB 1068) which,
as a commentator once wrote, ‘is less Beethoven than
Chaliapin’. Of the remaining titles from Rosa Ponselle
Sings Today her superb phrasing in O del mio amato
ben is something to marvel at, Tosti’s Aprile is
light and with a spring-like flutter in the voice. Sadero’s Amuri,
amuri, accompanied by herself and sung in Neapolitan
dialect, also involves some spoken phrases and sounds
of kisses. Drink to me only with thine eyes is
inward and seemingly simple but there is so much art
in her phrasing; her rubatos makes the melody come almost
to a standstill – idiosyncratic maybe but also proof
of her deep affection for the song.
In
Farley’s The Night Wind she expressively imitates
the howling wind – down to the basement of her contralto
register. Del Riego’s Homing, finally, is lovingly
phrased. The last fifteen minutes of the disc has an
interview where Ruby Mercer discusses the songs on the
original LP with Ms Ponselle. This was not on the LP
but sent to radio stations as promotional material. Hearing
Rosa Ponselle’s first spoken phrases I couldn’t help
feeling that this was the wrong voice for a celebrated
soprano. It isn’t very sonorous but very dark, so it’s
no wonder she had those contralto notes when singing.
The
remaining twenty-one titles from those intensive sessions
in ‘Villa Pace’ occupy the third CD. Why didn’t RCA Victor
want to release them? Are they markedly inferior? I don’t
think so. The sole standard opera aria among all the
sides, Cherubino’s Voi che sapete, is a fine
reading, Ciampi’s Tre giorni son che Nina, formerly
attributed to Pergolesi and in latter days sung by Alfredo
Kraus, is strong and assured. The Schubert songs, especially Der
Tod und das Mädchen, impressive. Richard Strauss’s Morgen!,
on the other hand, is too laboured but Duparc’s L’invitation
au voyage is subtle. Tristesse éternelle,
which is an arrangement of Chopin’s celebrated Etude
in E major, lets the melody unfold in all its beauty.
She also has good feeling for de Falla’s songs.
A
group of four sacred songs is heard with organ accompaniment.
The only really well known one is Bizet’s Agnus Dei,
recorded by Gigli, ‘the three tenors’ and many others.
This is an arrangement of the Intermezzo from L’Arlésienne.
Then follow four beautiful settings of Ave Maria.
Luzzi’s version seemed to me the finest. The encore is
Buzzi-Peccia Colombetta, a charming song here
adorned with some spoken contributions.
To
sum things up: the Art of Rosa Ponselle is just
as apparent here as on her earlier recordings, but her
voice has aged and readers who are not die-hard Ponselle
freaks are advised to listen before investing. First
priority remain her still unsurpassed recordings from
the 1920s.
Göran
Forsling
Track listing
CD1
Paolo TOSTI (1846 – 1916)
1.
Si tu voulais [2:52]
Nicholas de FONTENAILLES (19th Century)
2.
A l’aimé [3:51]
Nikolay RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (1844 – 1908)
3. The Nightingale and the Rose [3:51]
Ernest CHARLES (1895 – 1984)
4. When I have sung my songs [2:04]
5. When I have sung my songs (unpublished on 78 rpm)
[2:18]
Franz SCHUBERT (1797 – 1828)
6.
Ave Maria [5:15]
Anton ARENSKY (1861 – 1906)
7. On Wings of Dreams [3:42]
Franz SCHUBERT
8.
Ave Maria (unpublished on 78 rpm) [5:09]
Johann Paul Aegidius
MARTINI (1741 – 1816)
9.
Plaisir d’amour [4:02]
Anon. (arr. WECKERLIN,
J.B.)
10.
Jeune fillette (18
th-century
Bergerette) [1:41]
Claude DEBUSSY (1862 – 1918)
11.
Beau soir [2:36]
Leo DELIBES (1836 – 1891)
12.
Bonjour, Suzon [2:48]
Claude DEBUSSY
13.
La chevelure [3:33]
Arr. ROSS, Gertrude
14.
Carmen-Carmela [2:23]
Enrique GRANADOS (1867 – 1916)
15.
El Mirar de la Maja [3:22]
Fermin Maria ALVAREZ (1833 – 1898)
16.
La partida [4:11]
Giovanni PAISIELLO (1740 – 1816)
La Molinara:
17.
Nel cor più non mi sento [1:54]
Attr. ROSA
18.
Star vicino [1:47]
Paolo TOSTI
19.
A Vucchella [2:02]
20.
Ideale [3:47]
21.
Marechiare [2:56]
Geni SADERO (1886
- 1961)
22.
Fra a nana, bambin [2:47]
Rodolfo FALVO (1874 – 1936)
23.
Dicitencello vuje [3:22]
Paolo TOSTI
24. Could I [5:01]
CD 2
Jean-Baptiste
LULLY (1632 – 1687)
Amadis:
1.
Bois épais [3:16]
Mario PERSICO (1892 – 1977)
2.
Rosemonde [3:30]
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835 – 1921)
3.
Guitares et mandolines [1:35]
Ernest CHAUSSON (1855 – 1899)
Poème de l’amour et de la mer:
4.
Le temps de lilas [4:59]
Johannes BRAHMS (1833 – 1897)
5.
Von ewiger Liebe, Op. 43 No. 1 [5:11]
Richard TRUNK (1879 – 1968)
6.
Mir träumte von einem Königskind, Op. 4 No.
5 [3:12]
Franz SCHUBERT
7.
Erlkönig, Op. 1, D328 [4:04]
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770 – 1827)
8.
In questa tomba oscura, WoO 133 [3:26]
Ermanno WOLF-FERRARI (1876 – 1948)
9.
Rispetto [1:12]
Stefano DONAUDY (1879 – 1925)
10.
O del mio amato ben [4:34]
Paolo TOSTI
11.
Aprile [3:00]
Geni SADERO
12.
Amuri, amuri [4:21]
13.
I battitori di grano [1:16]
Trad.
14. Drink to me only with thine eyes [3:02]
Roland FARLEY (1892 – 1932)
15. The Night Wind [1:41]
Teresa DEL RIEGO (1876 – 1968)
16. Homing [2:37]
17-31 Interview with Ruby Mercer [15:27]
CD 3
Wolfgang Amadeus
MOZART (1756 – 1791)
Le nozze di Figaro:
1.
Voi che sapete [2:48]
Vincenzo CIAMPI (1719 – 1762)
2.
Tre giorni son che Nina [2:40]
Franz SCHUBERT
3.
An die Musik, Op. 88 No. 4, D547 [3:06]
4.
Der Tod und das Mädchen, Op. 7 No 3, D531 [2:54]
Richard WAGNER (1813 – 1883)
Wesendonck-Lieder:
5. No. 5,
Träume [5:06]
Richard STRAUSS (1864 – 1949)
6.
Morgen! Op. 27 No 4 [4:06]
Pyotr TCHAIKOVSKY (1840 – 1893)
7.
Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, Op. 6 No. 6
[3:26]
Henri DUPARC (1848 – 1933)
8.
L’invitation au voyage [4:30]
Emil PALADILHE (1844 – 1926)
9.
Psyché [3:15]
Fryderyk CHOPIN (1810 – 1849)
10.
Tristesse éternelle [3:29]
Manuel de FALLA (1876 – 1946)
Seven Popular Spanish Songs:
11. No. 3,
Asturiana [3:02]
12. No. 5,
Nana [1:46]
George MUNRO (1680 – 1731)
13. My Lovely Celia [2:25]
Kathleen LOCKHART
MANNING (1890 – 1951)
14. In the Luxembourg Gardens [2:21]
Georges BIZET (1838 – 1875)
15.
Agnus Dei [3:19]
Luigi LUZZI (1828 – 1876)
16.
Ave Maria [4:24]
Harrison MILLARD (1830 – 1895)
17.
Ave Maria [5:59]
Miguel SANDOVAL (1903 – 1953)
18.
Ave Maria [4:32]
Paolo TOSTI
19.
Ave Maria [3:42]
Luigi DENZA (1846 – 1922)
20.
Se [4:32]
Arturo BUZZI-PECCIA (1854 – 1943)
21.
Colombetta [3:35]
Rosa Ponselle (soprano) 
