Opera Recordings

2011-09-06T18:07:00.006+08:00

The Callas Butterfly and the Callas Traviata

In operatic history, there have been singers who have made such an impact on a particular role that they can be said to have ‘owned’ it. They cast a shadow so great over the role that any singer following in their footsteps years down the road labours under an immense weight of comparison. For many, Callas’ Tosca was such a role. “There are just some performers in some roles whom you can only ever hope to equal,” said soprano Grace Bumbry of the Callas Tosca, “because you know you can never surpass them.”

And to Tosca, you can add a string of others – Norma, Medea, Gioconda…

But for me, there are two roles that Callas never ‘owned’ which nevertheless are supreme testaments to her greatness, and if forced onto a desert island, these are the Callas recordings that I would clasp to my heart.

One of these is a role which Callas only ever sang on stage for 3 performances and which has never been at all associated with her: Madama Butterfly.

The other is a role of which a live recording from Lisbon in 1958, when unleashed on an unsuspecting world some years later, managed to overturn the existing evaluations of all available recordings: Violetta in La Traviata.

Callas and Butterfly
In the Callas Butterfly, I have always marvelled at the amazing combination of sensitivity, intelligence, awareness of irony, and curiously, strength. Strength is a surprising quality to describe the tragic Butterfly, but this is perhaps the hallmark of Callas’ performance, the quality that makes her performance stand out head and shoulders in a crowded field. Hers is a portrait of a human being grappling with the human condition, tussling with it, struggling to fend off the array of antagonistic forces that have gathered around her. The going down at the end is the epic end of a heroic battle. The 15 year-old Cio-Cio-San never had a chance, of course, and we know that. But SHE doesn’t. And this is precisely why you are pulled into her extraordinary struggle.

The power of the opera lies in the audience knowing what Butterfly does not know, and the libretto is peppered with dramatic irony of the kid that brings tears to your eyes from the word go. In the love-duet, for example, Butterfly says to Pinkerton words to the effect, “They tell me that in your country, butterflies are caught and pinned to a board for display”, and “I’m afraid to love, to die of love”. To which Pinkerton laughingly replies, “Don’t be silly, love gives life, not death!”. The libretto is one of the most intelligent opera scripts that I know.

And with Callas, you start crying at the start of Act 2 (not the usual Act 3), at the moment she sings "Un Bel Di" – because she sings it as a narrative to her maid, reassuring the maid that one ought to have faith, that one fine day Pinkerton will indeed return. And she describes the scene as she sees it in her mind, indeed as she has seen it in her mind for the past 3 years: first, you will see a plume of smoke from an incoming ship at the harbour, then you will see a small figure walking up the hill from afar, and then, this figure will begin to call out Butterfly’s name.…

Callas’s version of this aria is the most stunning and moving version of the aria I’ve ever heard. At the core is the actor’s art, as I’ve learned as an actor myself: you put yourself into the moment, and you say your words with total belief. And this is what you hear from Callas. You hear her absolute belief in her own words: Yes, one fine day, all this that I tell you will come to pass. There are no tears in her version, just a simple affirmation of a strong belief in human goodness, that all will be right with the world. And hearing that, you just….

Callas’ version of “Un Bel Di” is one that I refuse to listen to in recorded anthologies, because it can’t and shouldn’t be cut out brutally from the context in which she had intended it to be heard. If you ever find it in an anthology of the world’s favourite arias, the advisable thing is to skip the track when you come to it. “Un Bel Di” is not “Vissi D’arte.”

Callas charts an emotional journey that leaves you shattered at the end. Like her Traviata, when the final chords come at curtain’s close, you just sit there for a long while, not knowing what to do with yourself. I drag out her Butterfly and Traviata at 5-7 year intervals to have a good listen. They are the only operas that I never play while doing the ironing. I don’t want to de-value the experience. Every 5-7 years when I listen to them, I feel that I have totally contacted with someone, and I feel a catharsis, a washing out from within. And the years have only served to increase my appreciation, not diminished it in the usual way of one growing out of one’s youthful favourites.

Callas and Traviata
Callas made a commercial recording of Verdi’s La Traviata in 1952. Listening to it, you will note that there is nothing of special distinction about it. It is as good as any of the hundreds and hundreds of recordings of this popular opera. Then, sometime in the 1970s, EMI released a recording from a live performance in Lisbon in the year 1958. This recording caused a total re-evaluation of all Traviata recordings in the catalogues.

The full impact of this Lisbon 1958 Traviata lies in the final Act. Other singers can manage to get close to Callas in Acts 1 and 2, but no one has yet surpassed her final Act in Lisbon. It is extraordinary – it is the smallest final act Traviata I have ever heard. The dying Violetta shrinks with each passing minute. Violetta shrinks and shrinks until she is virtually part of the carpet. That’s HOW she dies. We all know there is no singer who can explode at the end of an opera like Callas could, but in Lisbon she implodes into smithereens and silence. While Callas’ Butterfly goes down with guns blazing, her Violetta implodes into nothingness.

Callas only achieved this for her extraordinary series of Traviata performances in 1958, not just in the Lisbon performances, but also in the Covent Garden Traviatas of a couple of months before, to judge by the reviews.

Callas went for broke in her 1958 Traviatas. I saw a You-Tube video of an interview with the conductor of the Lisbon Traviata, and he revealed that Callas had a massive struggle with her final letter-reading aria. The aria ends on a rising line, and Callas wanted to make the final high note disappear into a wisp of sound. During some of the performances she didn’t make that note as it would crack, the rising line demanding huge breath control for a diminuendo on a high note. He advised her to drop the idea for her own reputation, but Callas replied that she would rather crack than do it any other way as this was how that phrase ought to be sung. Callas took her art to masochistic extremes, tenor Jon Vickers observed. And so you have it – on some nights she didn’t make that note and on others she did. The Lisbon recording now commercially available was of an evening when she did make it.

The entire final Act is extraordinary, and for me as an experienced theatre actor now, I am trying to analyze it from the point of view of the actor’s art – it’s all about inhabiting the role, being clear about your intentions, being able to execute these intentions ...

On You-Tube there are now actually clips of this legendary Lisbon Traviata, but they are dim and distantly shot. But I got a sense of Callas on stage for this Violetta. For a performer who was renowned for her ability to move commandingly on stage, she was mostly still, and moved very little, even in the gaiety of the Act 1 party scene. And this was remarkably in line with what you hear on the recording. So it really should be no surprise. This was a dying Violetta right from the beginning, conserving her energies all the way – an extraordinary conception of the role which I have never seen on stage in the many Traviatas I’ve witnessed.

And oh yes, the 1958 Traviatas in London and Lisbon were also her final Traviatas. 1958 was a wonderful year for Callas. She was then at the physical form she wanted to be in order to be credible on stage, having lost the astonishing amount of weight that many also attributed as the cause of her rapid vocal decline in the last half of the 1950s. The voice had also acquired a new translucence much needed for a role such as Traviata (which I believe is a result of the weight loss based on evidence of her recordings pre and post the event). A mere two years further down the road, around about 1960, her recordings would show a voice that was no longer acceptable, even to a diehard admirer like me. Callas vocally limped on for a few more years as her stage appearances became less frequent and gave her final opera performance, as Tosca, at Covent Garden in 1965 (by some accounts, the 'best acted Tosca in opera's history' but with a sadly thinned-out voice, much reduced in volume, and shrill and wobbly in its high range).

1958, then, was a very good year. There was a glow and a glory, just before the end. After these final Traviatas, Callas never returned to the role again, so these Traviatas may also be called accurately “The Callas Final Traviatas”.

And as an actor, I can only say this: What a way to bid farewell to a role. What an exit.

2011-09-02T11:39:00.001+08:00

Maria Callas and The Grand Tradition

Among the pantheon of the greatest singers in the history of opera, Callas will always be a category unto herself. That she was one of the greatest actors in the history of the operatic stage is an undisputed assessment, but the danger in saying this is to underestimate her achievements purely as a singer. After all, there are too many singers who make an impact on stage but who are not of the highest calibre where it should rightfully count: in the purely vocal arena that has been most memorably termed “The Grand Tradition” by the opera critic J. B. Steane. In this book, Steane analyses all the available recordings of opera singers from the dawn of recordings and spells out the standards to which all the singers have striven, and by which all singers following know they will be judged.

Callas achieved all her dramatic intentions through the stringent art of operatic singing, obeying very scrupulously all the demands of the singing tradition in opera. Pop singers can sing a song such as “Fly me to the moon” in any way they like - as a ballad, a jazz number, a rock tune – and they can sing it in any key that best suits their voices. But an opera singer has no such flexibility. There is only one key, one rhythm, one tempo. And within this mercilessly tight restriction, they have to express emotions. You can’t slow it down in order to express sadness, and you can’t give it a jazzy lilt in order to express joy.
And this straitjacket is precisely what Callas exults in. The tighter the straitjacket, the greater was her ability to stand out from the pack.

People often don’t know this, or don’t know this enough. Her legendary Juilliard masterclasses (conducted long after her voice had burnt out) are fascinating for this very reason. All the young singers she coached tried to be expressive and dramatic, no doubt striving to be at their best while standing before possibly the most dramatic and expressive opera singer in history. But Callas’ standard riposte was: “But you haven’t learned how to sing the aria yet.” The most fascinating lesson was to a young soprano singing Medea’s aria (the ferocious Medea being a famed Callas role). Callas became quite exasperated, at one stage saying to the singer: “You are making every line into a major aria; why don’t you just sing the notes?”

It hasn’t been acknowledged enough that Callas’ ability to spin out a long legato line for expressive purposes was her greatest specialty. I marvel at it. This was where she was really supreme. Legato singing should lie at the core of every singer’s basic armoury, and it is the hardest thing, especially for Callas whose voice was never fully under control even in her halcyon years. However, if you compare the legato of Joan Sutherland (a singer with a perfect voice over which she had total control) and Callas in the very same arias, you will understand how special Callas was. Sutherland’s legato was passable (her unique strengths really lying elsewhere, not here). But Callas not only joins note to note more seamlessly, but also shapes the phrase in terms of dynamics and tonal colouring to achieve the dramatic intentions in her mind. And she does this in a way that leaves all competitors behind.

Extraordinary as she was in single arias, the next thing I want to say about Callas on purely vocal terms is that she is even more masterly in a long scena, where a singer has to negotiate recitatives, an arioso or an aria, and perhaps a cabaletta over a 20 minute segment or longer, ie, what is essentially the equivalent of a long monologue for an actor in a play. Callas’ very special command of what the opera critic Lord Harewood calls the “total musico-dramatic context” is unrivalled by anyone else singing the same music. This is what it really must mean when we glibly refer to her as “one of the greatest singing actresses in opera’s history”. THIS is what we should be talking about, not just about her ability to physically act on stage. For evidence of this, listen to her LP called “Mad Scenes”, a very frivolously-named album, and listen to her long scena from Bellini’s IL Pirata and Donizetti’s Anna Bolena. You gain a real respect for Bellini and Donizetti when you hear what they have actually composed. These are not crazy ‘mad scenes’, but truly credible and potent dramatic monologues encapsulating several musically-defined sub-moments that are designed to stretch any singer.

The last thing I want to add about Callas’ purely vocal achievements is that while Sutherland is truly stupendous in the speed, rhythmic accuracy and sparkle of her coloratura or rapid scale-work, Callas can astonish you with the expressiveness of hers: When Callas sallies forth to vocalize about rippling brooks and descending shafts of moonlight, you can actually HEAR the rippling brook and SEE the shaft of moonlight. I am not sure that she actually could have analyzed it for us like that; I think it was all of one piece to her – the dramatic intent informed the way she sang. I don’t think Callas knew consciously what she was doing. She merely responded to the drama of the words and let her singing take her wherever she felt it ought to go.

I am delighted that in this day and age, with opera producers and directors obsessed with performers who can act while hanging upside down, someone like Anna Netrebko can be acknowledged as a soprano of quality. I feel my faith in things re-assured, because Netrebko is a true singer in the Grand Tradition, not a beautiful woman who can also act convincingly on stage. That is to say, she is no flamboyant histrionic trickster.

In this current climate, I often muse that if Callas were to appear on the scene today, she would quickly be a star – but not for the reasons I admire her most for. She would be a star for the theatrical impact she could create. But Callas’ real value was in her achievements within as well as despite the central tradition. People sometimes forget – Callas deserves her place in the operatic pantheon by her singing alone. It is actually not important to me that she was a great stage actor; opera singers who are also great stage actors are no longer so rare. But I don’t know of any other singer who is a great audio actor so consistently. And Callas achieved this within the straitjacket constraints of the Grand Tradition.

Therein lies the glorious miracle that was Maria Callas.

2007-04-24T15:58:00.000+08:00

Joan Sutherland – A Vocal Phenomemon

One of the world’s greatest sopranos, Joan Sutherland, turned 80 last year. And this seems as perfectly good a time as any to celebrate her achievements.

So, what were Sutherland’s achievements?

In a performance art in which vocal achievement is the prime criterion of greatness, Sutherland’s greatness can be measured by one simple criterion: She still has no successor to fill her shoes, 14 years after her retirement. Indeed, throughout the years of her career’s ascendancy, from 1959 to 1980, she had no peer. By this, I mean not that there were no other excellent sopranos, but that none possessed all the attributes that she did.

First, Sutherland’s voice was a spinto voice, a rarer category of soprano voice because it is more powerful than the average soprano voice.

Secondly, the timbre of her voice was of an unusual quality - round, full, limpid, as far removed from the stereotype of a thin-voiced screechy soprano as you could get. The voice appears to ebb and flow, and to glow luminously, as she sings. This luminous quality is most evident in the early years, in the early 1960s, when her voice was astonishingly beautiful. It also had what the Italians call ‘squillo’, or a ‘ping’ in English – that bright resonant edge to the voice that seems to ping on your ears, as in the difference you hear between a metal object dropping onto a marble floor and on a wooden one.

Thirdly, Sutherland had an extraordinary upper range that is usually beyond the reach of voices of the spinto type – she commanded two whole tones above the usual limit for a spinto soprano, reaching an E in alt, ie, two and a half octaves above middle C.

And finally, the ultimate clincher that helped to make her the single true vocal phenomenon in Italian opera of the second half of the 20th century: her extraordinary ability for florid singing. She was, by my reckoning, together with Beverly Sills, among the handful of truly outstanding coloratura sopranos of all time.

All these vocal attributes were harnessed for their apogee on that historic evening of 15 February 1959, when the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden launched Sutherland (one of their stalwart house sopranos) on her sensational international career in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. Sutherland’s triumph on that evening has been documented elsewhere. Suffice it to say that, on purely vocal terms, there has never been, to this moment of writing, a Lucia like Joan Sutherland. To hear for yourself why the opera world went wild, listen to Sutherland’s first recording of the two major arias made in the same year (1959), a recording even better than her first complete recording of the opera in 1961 (her second complete recording in 1973 with Pavarotti, however, found her in puzzlingly unattractive voice with neither glow nor ping to be heard anywhere).

The Joan Sutherland of this first phase of her vocal estate is nowhere more thrillingly heard than in her recording of famous soprano arias called The Art of the Prima Donna.

Soon after this, however, Sutherland deliberately found a different placement for her voice in order to take on the repertoire of Bel Canto operas, aiming to produce a fuller sound in the middle voice to serve the favoured range in which these operas were written. The middle voice became more substantial to the ears, more opaque and more covered, but at the expense of the young, fresh sound of her first phase. This second phase of her vocal evolution lasted roughly from 1962 to 1982.

In the final phase of Sutherland’s vocal development, from 1982 to 1992, the voice no longer had ‘squillo’ in the top range, but the middle voice was remarkably sensual in sound – oozing like melted chocolate. It was also an extraordinary sound. And it is hard to say which phase of Sutherland’s voice is the most attractive, for all three phases have their own claims to stake.

Joan Sutherland’s achievements sat squarely in the mainstream of the grand tradition of operatic vocalism, and she represents, in those four markers of her brilliance, the apogee of the art of singing. This art is in danger of having its importance increasingly diminished as modern audiences and critics approach opera as if they were watching merely a piece of theatre. For this reason, it is perfectly timely to re-affirm what Sutherland represented. Despite the constant harping by critics on her deficiencies during her singing years – her poor diction, her limited acting ability, her un-girlish physical build in roles which demand romantic heroines – Joan Sutherland was, quite simply, an absolute balm to the ears. In opera, hers is the voice that every aspiring soprano secretly dreams about. In the entire history of opera, hers is the voice among only a handful that is able to cope with the demands of any soprano role ever written.

And that is why the term ‘vocal phenomenon’ is not a term of approbation but a simple statement of fact.

[For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Sutherland]

2006-12-20T14:52:00.000+08:00

Carmen

Carmen is among the small handful of the most popular operas in the canon. In this posting on Carmen, I am attempting not so much a review of the 4 famed recordings of the opera but rather an assessment of how the title role has been conceived and performed by the 4 divas concerned. It is rare to encounter an operatic role that is able to call up such diametrically-opposed conceptions as those of Maria Callas and Victoria de los Angeles, for instance. It is more usual to encounter differences in terms of shades of grey rather than in black and white.

1. Victoria de los Angeles (EMI, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham, 1956)

It is astonishing that I only heard Victoria de los Angeles’ recording of Carmen a few weeks ago. By common assent, this is the classic recording of the opera. I heard de los Angeles’ singing of the Habanera (which everyone knows even if they don’t know a thing about opera) only a few weeks ago on a CD and I didn’t recognize the voice but I immediately sat up. I’d always felt the Habanera was a boring piece of music, but here was a most bewitching rendition of it, and for the first time I heard and saw in my mind a beautiful and warm woman teasingly singing her credo of love. It was as far removed as it could possibly be from the usual versions that suggest carnality and cynicism.

When I reached out to read the singer’s name on that track, I then remembered all that I’d read about this recording. By assent, the view was that Victoria de los Angeles’ Carmen was indeed beautifully sung, but ‘twas a pity that she could never persuade anyone that Carmen could do anything so vulgar as stab a fellow worker at her cigarette factory with a dagger. This view, of course, presupposes what kind of a woman could be a Carmen – a free spirit who opts for the immediacy and transience of love and passion over the safety and commitment of any conventional relationship. And the conventional view is that such a woman could only be the carnal and cynical sort.

De los Angeles certainly puts paid to that notion. She at once persuades you that here is a woman of a human scale, in whom free-spiritedness and responsiveness to the immediacy of passion cause no conflict or any sense of disjunction. And neither should warmth and sweetness of personality be counted a surprise. Everything is credible about this Carmen, right up to her willingness to face death at the opera’s end rather than submit to a lover whom she no longer loves. I had ignored this classic recording for a long time, mainly because I was swayed by the common opinion of it, but it offers a truly a unique portrait of Carmen, and one that is attractive.

Carmen is, of course, a mezzo-soprano role, but vocally, there is probably no role more suitable for de los Angeles, a soprano with a very rich and warm middle voice but whose top was no longer easy or pleasant by about 1960. Her voice was most probably truly a mezzo-soprano in nature (and indeed, I thought I was hearing a mezzo-soprano when I heard that bewitching Habanera for the first time).

Nicolai Gedda in his first recording of the role of Don Jose (his second was with the redoubtable Maria Callas, see below) matches de los Angeles’ conception in making the namby-pamby Don Jose an almost genteel man rather than the near-psychotic that he actually is. And French baritone Ernest Blanc is successful as the matador Escamillo because he sings the famous Torreador Song with the style and glamour which I believe the role requires. Escamillo, after all, sweeps onto the stage, cape and all, offering an extraordinary antidote to the dull and deadly Don Jose. You would need to see this moment in the opera to understand Bizet’s intentions here.

2. Maria Callas (EMI, conducted by George Pretre, 1964)

No greater contrast could there be to Victoria de los Angeles’ Carmen than Callas’. Callas manages to make Carmen a very unattractive character – cold, dour, sour, a truly misguided interpretation. The great tragedian in Callas turns Carmen into a great tragic figure, but so turned off are you from the start that you don’t want to hear about it to the end. True, no one makes you sit up at the very first words of Carmen’s entry onto the stage the way Callas does, and no one sings the Card Song (in which Carmen realizes that her death has been foretold) with such a gripping sense of foreboding and brooding. But you just don’t buy her Habanera, about love being like a bird and so on. This Carmen has never experienced love, or passion, or even a moment’s joy anywhere in her life. This Carmen is not even interested in Don Jose, but eyes him distantly from a corner and swallows him in the course of the opera as a means to making her own pact with her destiny.

And yes, this was Callas’ second last recording made in the throes of her final vocal phase, but Carmen is a low-lying role intended for a mezzo-soprano, so Callas should have been able to negotiate her way around its vocal demands. But no, the register changes required in the low reaches of the voice pose difficulties, and I become more certain of this judgement when I hear other sopranos, Victoria de los Angeles and Leontyne Price, essay the role (with these two singers, you could be forgiven for asking: What register changes? Are there register changes for a soprano in this role?).

Nicolai Gedda, in his second outing on a recording as Don Jose, is now a different creature, singing with a fierceness to match Callas in the final moments, though it is not nearly enough to do justice to the role.

3. Teresa Berganza (Phillips, conducted by Claudio Abbado, 1973)

When the Spanish mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza embarked on her recording of Carmen, she released an accompanying letter printed in the record notes detailing her conception of her role. She made a great fuss, about how, as a Spanish woman, she found it offensive to have Carmen regarded as carnal woman of low repute when in fact she saw Carmen as a beacon of liberated Spanish womanhood. It was against this fanfare that she took on the role and the recording.

Berganza offered indeed an intriguing promise, and ultimately a foolish one. Berganza’s performance is disastrous. Carnal and sluttish this Carmen certainly isn’t, but I was at a loss as to what it actually was. I heard nothing. This Carmen was no low-life, was not mean and tragic (like Callas’), was not alluring and attractive (like de los Angeles’), was neither sensual, free-spirited, warm, liberated, nor anything else. The Habanera was well sung (as you would expect from Berganza) but had no charm, and it was not the credo that Bizet had intended (indeed, it was not a statement of anything in particular). Similarly, her Card Song foretold no tragedy, and you expect this Carmen not only to stay alive at the end of the opera but indeed to live to a ripe old age as a benign Spanish grandmother in a quiet Spanish village. No, Berganza’s conception of Carmen has already been well served, and well served by her compatriot, Victoria de los Angeles.

Vocally too, Berganza’s sweet voice is too small for the role, and the recording had to be twiddled to favour Berganza's voice in volume, with the unfortunate effect that Domingo sounds always as if he is singing in the background, serenading her from afar.

Sherill Milnes, despite his basically glamorous baritone voice, is unable (like most singers singing Escamillo) to deal successfully with the bottom notes of the Toreador’s Song. And it is absolutely crucial that the singer here be able to reach both ends of his range comfortably to give the proper heft and swirl to this famous number in the opera.

4. Leontyne Price (RCA, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, 1964)

This was another recording I avoided based on the prejudice that the soprano Leontyne Price, renowned for her fabulous top notes but with a very hoarse bottom voice, would not be able to cope with the low-lying reaches of the role. And what a surprise it turned out to be. Price’s performance is one of the most successful on record. The voice is amazingly at ease at the bottom, quite able to fool those unfamiliar into believing that this was, indeed, a mezzo-soprano they were hearing.

And what a performance. Unlike with de los Angeles, you have no doubt that although alluring and sensual, this is also a woman fully capable of violence.

As Don Jose, Franco Corelli gives a convincing portrait of a little boy inside a big man. The sheer machismo in his tone married to a volatile and whining manner rightly hints at a dangerous man who could easily topple over the verge. Vocally, Corelli is not always attractive, the handsome and hefty tone often sounding unfocused at mid-volume but hitting with his customary impact when he has to sing out. Despite this, of the Don Joses discussed here, Corelli’s is the only one who draws you into the drama.

Robert Merrill, with one of the most impressive baritone voices ever heard, unfortunately manages only to exude aggressiveness in his Toreador Song, spitting and snarling away as if in the midst of a bullfight rather than allowing the song to be his credo in manner and attitude. Escamilla’s breath-catching entrance launches the song and it is a moment of suave glamour, not aggression.

Mirella Freni is among the best of the recorded Micaelas, a thankless role which nevertheless welcomes a soprano who can sing Micaela’s aria with a fullness of tone which is often not found in the various recorded Micaelas around.

All in all, of the four recordings discussed here, this is the one to get.

2005-11-29T20:29:00.000+08:00

Cosi Fan Tutte

In terms of the music, rather than the drama, this Mozart opera would have to be my favourite opera of all time. Yes, the story is silly in the manner of comedies, but the music is, to put it in one word, ravishing. I’ve been listening to various recordings over the past several weeks, or rather, re-listening to them, and I would like to pin down some thoughts and opinions I have about the relative merits of just three of these recordings to share with you all. The many guidebooks to opera recordings never have enough space to discuss each recording fully. So here I am once more, unconstrained by space, or word limits, or personal indulgence!

1. Decca recording, conducted by Georg Solti, 1973

This 1973 recording (the first of two recorded by Solti) is one that I keep returning to, even after wandering off to sample others over the years. It has not pleased most reviewers, who have found it too high-powered, ie, too dramatic, too fast-paced, for such a genial comedy (and they take as the ideal, the Bohm 1963 recording, the most universally praised of all the recordings of this opera, and the most ridiculously over-praised in my opinion – but more about this one below). But I find this Solti recording magnificently passionate, truly rising to this most passionate of Mozart operas – Cosi Fan Tutte is a more passionate, more focused, more concentrated opera than the more admired Mozart work, The Marriage of Figaro.

The overall sense from this Solti recording is certainly one of great drive and momentum. Yes, this makes it the most exciting of all the available recordings, but what is more important is not the pace but the pulse – the rhythm, the accentuations. Every other recording simply sounds a tad boring by comparison, even if they go at the same pace as this Solti at certain moments. And I say this after very close listening over several weeks and making side by side comparisons of various sections of the opera. The quality is not just in the singing but also in the recitatives which interact at the pace of real dialogue, and this is most telling in the back-slapping ‘boys’ talk’ moments among the three lead male singers.But what really sets the Solti set apart is actually the singing.

Let’s begin with perhaps the most controversial singer in the cast.The Spanish soprano Pilar Lorengar (in the role of Fiordiligi) has one of the most distinctive and individual voices I’ve ever heard. You will never mistake her for anyone else once you have heard her (unlike, say, the creamy-toned Kiri Te Kanawa, who comes from a long line of creamy-toned sopranos who are not so easily distinguishable from each other). Lorengar’s voice has an attractive nasal quality, a certain resonant ‘body’ that often eludes other sopranos of her voice type (a lyric-soprano, to use the correct term). But what is particularly striking is the impression you get that the voice is, well… ‘shimmering’. Leonard Bernstein apparently described it as ‘luminous’. Closer hearing reveals that this shimmer or luminosity is due to the presence of a very fast and slight vibrato, of a kind that I have never heard in any other singer, past or present. Other sopranos have a vibrato of varying degrees, but none sounds like Lorengar.

The possible controversy with Lorengar in this Mozart role is that she is not regarded as being ideally suited for singing Mozart’s melodic lines with the required ‘purity of line’, the kind of purity that you get best from boy sopranos who have no vibrato, or from a renowned Mozart singer like Te Kanawa who has very little vibrato. Now, nobody actually knows how much purity of line the singers in Mozart’s time showed when singing his operas in his presence, but the tradition which has been established over time is that there is a certain style required for singing Mozart. By this reckoning, Lorengar is certainly not an ideal Mozart singer.But Lorengar wins me over by her unique sound, and by an even more important reason – she gives the most moving portrayal of Fiordiligi that I’ve heard on recordings. She has two big arias to sing, and she does it her way with both.

The first is “Come scoglio”, in which Fiordiligi proudly asserts the fidelity of her love. Usually sung with great vehemence, Lorengar instead sings it with a sense of fragility, as if to suggest the uncertainty of such an inhuman proclamation (Like a rock I will stand in faith and love). Those of you who know the plot will understand the absolute aptness of this uncertainty.The second aria is the very beautiful “Per pieta” in which Fiordiligi makes an inner plea for pity to be taken on those who stray from love’s fidelity. Lorengar is the most agonizingly heartfelt of all the Fiordiligis I have heard in this aria, and it really is a musically moving performance – quite magnificent. So there you have it, the least vocally suited soprano for Mozart giving the best performance of this Mozart role.

The more famous and more acclaimed mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza sings the role of Dorabella with her customary purity of tone (here is a member of that elite pantheon of “Mozart singers”!). True, this Dorabella is a little more faceless than others I have heard, but I prefer Berganza’s sound to the usually plummy or matronly sounds emitted by many other mezzo-sopranos. It is clear that Berganza made her reputation chiefly on her voice rather than on the quality of her vocal acting.

Tenor Ryland Davies in the role of Ferrando has been one of the most unfairly under-rated Ferrandos on record, and I would like to help set it straight. Davies’ is, quite simply, the best sung Ferrando I’ve heard. Few tenors can beat him for displaying that Mozartean purity of line. Davies’ voice is absolutely even throughout its range, every note perfectly placed and evenly-emitted, so that his show-stopping aria “Un’aura amorosa” is exactly that – show stopping. It’s a miracle how he keeps the singing line afloat in this aria, phrasing with all the required light and shade and yet not losing the line at any point, as can happen with many other a singer. For a light lyric tenor, Davies’ tone is also surprisingly robust, a firm and focused sound which would carry very well even in a large opera house, I expect.

Tom Krause’s baritone has never sounded better than here in the role of Guglielmo, handsome and masculine with its hint of a very slight tonal roughness, and he distinguishes himself unexpectedly in a minor aria – “Non siate ritrosi” simply doesn’t sound as melodious sung by any of his competition (and I haven’t been able to figure out exactly why; probably to do with his manner of phrasing).

Gabriel Bacquier gives the most characterful Don Alfonso on record - cynical but genial and good-humoured. And Jane Berbie similarly is the most characterful Despina on record – a purposely coarse maid, full of fun and street-smart wisdom, the entire character captured in the very tone of her singing voice when most Despinas sound mostly sweet and pert (and yet at the same time, Berbie still sings with the requisite purity of tone for Mozart even if her actual sound is just so-so!).By the way, this recording is also absolutely complete (none of the usual cuts made as is done by earlier recordings) and the recorded sound quality is excellent (this is still a variable factor in recordings, being dependent on many factors such as the acoustics of the recording venue, the skill of the engineers etc).

2. EMI recording, conducted by Karl Bohm, 1963

This second recording of the opera made by Bohm in 1963 is, as I have said, the most over-praised I’ve seen. In many quarters, it is reckoned to be the best recording of Cosi Fan Tutte ever made (the authoritative Gramophone guide even awards it a special rosette). Well, I just have to disagree.

It is perhaps easy to see why it had such impact when it first came out. Perhaps for the first time, we had a recording of Cosi Fan Tutte that aimed to be ‘expressive’ – the singers vary their dynamics in their recitatives very often. Indeed, they seem to spend a lot of time whispering dramatically to each other but in a way that would actually have made them inaudible had they been performing on stage. All this nudging expressiveness is fine, except that the recording is ruined by a cast of largely sub-standard or indifferent performers.

The chief culprit also happens to be the most praised – the redoubtable and ever selfconsciously expressive Elizabeth Schwarzkopf in the role of Fiordiligi. The problem is that Schwarzkopf is so intent on being expressive that very rarely does she sing an even line. Each note is so toyed with that she comes across as whining, screeching, moaning, grimacing, gritting her teeth – anything but singing. It sounds such a comic caricature that it becomes laughable. Her “Come Scoglio” alternates between sounding stern and sounding hysterical (barking chest tones and screeching downward scales). She does manage to keep her face (and voice) straight in “Per pieta”, but you can still hear the pushing for expressiveness. This is precisely the kind of thing that gives ammunition to those who believe that ‘expressiveness’ in opera singing is a dirty word (and the very opposite of what someone like Maria Callas was able to do). Schwarzkopf alone disqualifies this set from being seriously considered as an acceptable option in the huge catalogue of available recordings of this opera.

Christa Ludwig suggests a sensual and languid Dorabella (a plausible characterization) but otherwise makes no particular impression. Neither does Walter Berry as Don Alfonso nor Giuseppe Taddei as Guglielmo – they are dramatically too neutral in roles which other singers have made so much more of. Hanny Steffek is a cool and prim maid Despina – not much here. And Alfredo Kraus, so reputed for his fine command of the singing line in all his other roles by other composers, simply shows that he was not ready for Mozart in his singing of Ferrando (indeed, he had never sung the role before the recording was made, and neither had the other two male leads apparently). Just sample his acid-test aria “Un’aura amorosa” – the lack of a true line forged from skilful shading of tone and variation of dynamics means that he is totally outclassed by the recorded competition.

I keep returning to this recording at various intervals, just to convince myself that I have missed its beauties – after all, it is so universally acclaimed that something must have been wrong with my response. But after 19 years of trying, I’ve decided to give up. I am going to say this: This recording is just awful. Truly awful. To all of you who are going to consult all the renowned guides in order to decide which recording of Cosi Fan Tutte to buy, please….choose ANY other than this one. Or you will end up like me 19 years ago. I had bought this Bohm recording, and then had to try to sell it off so that I could purchase another recording. A good friend took pity on me, and bought it off me. I had been in possession of it for less than one week!

Besides the above gripes, the recording quality is also a little less than what we would expect these days, AND, the score is presented with the customary cuts, as was the performance custom back then for this opera.I badly wanted to own a Cosi recording 19 years ago. It was the second opera I had ever seen and I was hooked. The year was 1976 and it was a production by the Australian Opera in Melbourne, and I went back to see it again before the season ended.And the first opera I had ever seen? It was Rigoletto, and I saw it the year before when a friend took me to see my first opera, very much hoping I would understand what the fuss was all about.To find out about Rigoletto, you will have to wait for another posting!

3. Philips recording, conducted by Colin Davis, 1974

Just one more to talk about – the 1974 star-studded recording by Colin Davis. I’ve chosen to discuss this one precisely because there was certainly curiosity on my part about what these stars would be like in such an ensemble opera as Cosi Fan Tutte.Well, the disappointment was mighty.Montserrat Caballe, one of opera’s super-divas of the 70s and 80s, sings the role of Fiordiligi without any special distinction whatsoever. This possessor of one of the most beautiful voices ever heard in opera could not endow any of Fiordiligi’s music with any special beauty (how is this possible?). Neither could she invest the role with any special insight. Fiordiligi’s two arias sound pedestrian – “not bad” is what I would say.

Unfortunately, that is not what I can say about the famed English mezzo-soprano Janet Baker and tenor Nicolai Gedda. Baker’s retirement should have taken place before this recording was made. There is one small patch of voice in the lower middle that sounds acceptable but the rest is coarse and truly worn, and there is no ease or beauty anywhere in her singing.

The almost legendary Gedda should have retired even earlier. Had Gedda not been Gedda, he would not have been allowed to record even his main aria “Un’aura amorosa”, much less the whole opera. The whole aria is painful to hear – it begins just slightly off-key (the voice no longer able to pin the exact note down squarely) and proceeds from there in a most strenuous way, the tone emerging dry and harsh in too many moments.

Not quite regarded as being as starry as Caballe, Baker or Gedda, Wladimiro Ganzarolli (Guglielmo) and Richard Van Allan (Don Alfonso), also make no distinctive impact in their roles.Only Ileana Cotrubas as the maid Despina comes alive; however, her attractive but fragile tone does not appear to please others as much as it can please me.Colin Davis conducts the score in the same ‘not bad’ way.

2005-11-29T19:58:00.000+08:00

Die Zauberflöte

Fritz Wunderlich’s Tamino in the 1964 Karl Bohm recording of this Mozart opera (commonly referred to by its English title, The Magic Flute) is truly wondrous. His is the most praised Tamino on record, and I only found out why when I had the long-overdue chance to listen to the recording just a few weeks ago. More below, but let me say that although I am re-discovering the beauty of Mozart’s writing in this work, I still remember walking out of the theatre the last time I saw the opera live and swearing that The Magic Flute was definitely an opera that was not meant to be seen, but rather meant only to be heard. Nothing has happened since to make me change my mind. But I can’t wait to talk about Fritz Wunderlich’s Tamino.

1. EMI recording, conducted by Karl Bohm, 1964

The specialness of Fritz Wunderlich’s Tamino becomes truly obvious when you compare it side by side with several other tenors who have recorded the role. What’s so special about it? Well, the voice beats all recent competition, first of all. It is a lyric tenor, but with a fuller body than other lyric tenors such as Peter Schreier, Francisco Araiza, Nicolai Gedda etc who have recorded the role. There is a greater heroic heft in the sound. But what is more astonishing is his use of it in this role. Witness his singing of the main aria “Dies Bildnis”. It is taken at a slow pace, but the legato stays intact throughout. Not only does it stay intact, but the melodic lines are consistently shaped, moulded, coloured with dynamic contrasts. The whole effect is that the aria appears to glow - there is no other word to describe it. It glows like embers coming to life, and about to burst into full flame. At this point in the opera, Tamino is looking at Pamina’s portrait and feeling the flush of dawning love, and there is no Tamino who expresses this dawning like Wunderlich. This glowing quality is carried all the way through the recording, and it is just an astonishing achievement. I could just listen to it forever.

Karl Bohm conducts the score with great beauty and it is quite a wonderful version of the work. There is a fine balance between the serious elements of the music and the comic, and he avoids the sententiousness, the heaviness, that can slightly mar other recordings (such as the Sawallisch 1972).

There is also the wonderful Franz Crass as Sarastro, always balm to the ears with his focused bass-baritone voice, quite possibly the best Sarastro on record (followed by Samuel Ramey in the Marriner 1989).

And there is no better Queen of the Night than Roberta Peters, I’m convinced of this after having heard countless singers in the role. Peters is the only Queen who actually sounds genuinely saddened in her first aria. I was quite astonished when I first heard it – this sadness came across immediately. And of course, like all her recorded competition, she has no technical problems with the floridity of her two arias, nor with the High Fs in them. There may be more fearsome and angry Queens (Edda Moser in the Sawallish 1972) or Queens with a larger or sweeter voice (Cheryl Studer in the Davis 1989), but none has given such a rounded portrait of this very short role.

Another highly-praised singer is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Papageno, but here I have a few qualms. It is certainly beautifully-sung and the sound of the voice is quite ravishing, but Fischer-Diskau’s manner is a little too noble and patrician for the role of the bird-catcher. The required earthy and folksy quality is better captured by Walter Berry in the most universally-praised Klemperer 1962 recording (but which I feel is no better than the Bohm under discussion here), or the irrepressible Herman Prey (in the Solti 1969, which was the first complete recording of The Magic Flute I ever owned). However, Fischer-Dieskau is a joy to hear, and I am not complaining.

The only disappointment, and the one thing that leaves me hankering to own other recordings, is the Pamina of Evelyn Lear. What’s wrong here? Lear sings beautifully, in the Mozart manner – every note carefully placed, with no sliding or scooping, and every tone produced with evenness and perfection. But that is the problem. She is so busy trying to meet the standards of a Mozart singer that she comes across without any personality whatsoever. Hers is the most dramatically nondescript Pamina heard on recordings. And this is a real pity, especially in her moments with Wunderlich and Crass. She just disappears into the background. In recordings of the last 40 years, perhaps only Kiri Te Kanawa has successfully sung Pamina (Marriner 1989), outclassing the formidable Margaret Price (too forceful and ungraceful in the Davis 1984) and Gundula Janowitz (vocally too scrawny in the Klemperer 1962), her two closest competitors in my view.

2. Other Recordings

All the recordings I have mentioned are fine and may be safely recommended – the Klemperer 1963 (EMI), the Solti 1969 (Decca), the Sawallish 1972 (EMI), the Davis 1984 (Philips), the Marriner 1989 (Philips).

3. EMI recording, conducted by Roger Norrington, 1991

The only one I have heard that is to be avoided at all costs is the Norrington 1990 performed on period instruments and in a ‘period style’, ie, in a style that Mozart himself might have encountered in his lifetime. The point that has to be made is simply this: A performance might be ‘authentic’ in style and approach, but this is no guarantee that it is going to be a dramatically or musically appealing performance. Norrington’s is so metrically unyielding, his speeds so hurried, the touch so light that The Magic Flute comes across as nothing more than an amateur folk musical (yes we all know it is a singspiel or folk opera, but it surely doesn’t have to be like this). There is not one moment of gravity or grandeur, and even if this was how the opera was intended to be played initially, subsequent generations of conductors and singers have shown that there are better ways of approaching the work. There is no arrogance in saying this, and it is something that even composers of minor ditties understand – you may write your ditty and perform it in your intended way, and later find yourself feeling astonished and then quickly persuaded that there are actually better alternative ways of performing your own work. Musically, the Norrington is unattractive, and dramatically, it is trivial. I have listened to it several times, and have found it increasingly hard to listen for more than 20 minutes into the opera.

4. Recording, conducted by John Eliot Gardner, 1996

I have since sampled another recording on period instruments, and this one is a winner. It definitely proves that a recording that strives to be authentic to the performance practices of Mozart's day can still remain red-blooded. Christiane Oelze is a beautiful-sounding Pamina, singing her solo aria at the usual 'period' slow pace and yet ensuring it is musically shaped and heart-felt at the same time. She is ably partnered by the Tamino of Michael Schade, who matches her in delicacy and sweetness of voice. If you are looking for a period instrument recording, this is the one to own.

5. Chandos recording, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, 2005

I just had the chance to listen to the latest recording of The Magic Flute, a recording using an English translation conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras. This is Mackerras' second recording (the first was in the original German).

Unlike the Norrington and Gardner, Mackerras does not use period instruments, but like them, he aims for a performance style closer to what Mozart probably intended, ie, a generally speedier performance. This speediness and its repercussions are most obvious in the tempo taken for Pamina's aria "Ach, ich fuhls" and which Mackerras himself uses to illustrate what he is trying to do. Apparently, we have developed a tradition of taking Pamina's aria very slowly, and at this slow speed, we have "created" an aria of breathtaking (literally for the soprano!) beauty. It is indeed a haunting aria in the key of G Minor, quite unlike anything ever written by Mozart anywhere else. Kiri Te Kanawa herself has said that she sings this aria every day as a vocalise to test whether her voice is truly in tune - such is the legendary status of this piece of vocal music.

Well, it is quite conceivable that at these faster speeds, we could develop a different but equally valid fondness for it; it certainly sounds as remarkable and as unique today as it must have to the very first listeners at the opera's premiere. However, Mackerras’ Pamina (Rebecca Evans) is vocally not up to the task of singing the aria (or the rest of the music, if the truth be told). At the faster tempo, the brief passagework Mozart requires in a small section of the aria sounds ‘unbound’ and unintegrated to the aria – this brief section clearly requires a lot of skilful work on the part of any soprano.

This recording also offers to me the most satisfying ending of all – from the moment of Sarastro’s entry right to the opera’s jubilant conclusion. Mackerras catches absolutely the right mood, and the ending is truly joyous and jubilant. While other recordings sound merely sonorously triumphant, Mackerras’ sounds as if the world has been really opened up to air and sunlight. For me, this version is worth having just for the last 5 minutes alone.

However, despite everything, this latest recording of the opera does not actually compete well with all the othersI have mentioned. Basically, the singing is just not good enough. The Tamino (Barry Banks) is shrill and unvarying in dynamics, the Sarastro (John Tomlinson) suffers from pitch and tempo problems (isn’t this amazing for a recording?) and a very wobbly vibrato, and the Pamina is unable to deliver a genuine legato line. If these important lead roles have been so badly taken, then the recording has without a doubt been seriously undermined.