Naxos continues its service to opera lovers with the release of two historical performances in superb sonic restorations by Ward Marston. Adding to the releases of Thomas Beecham’s 1938 Die Zauberflöte, a 1946 Paris Opera Samson et Dalila, and a 1938 Tristan und Isolde with Flagstad and Melchior from Covent Garden comes another release from Paris and one from Milan. Two operas which could not be more different, both recorded complete in 1931 with casts that, surprisingly, might have more in common than we could expect today.
Massenet’s Werther was first performed in a German translation in Vienna in 1892 conducted by the composer. The heldentenor—a new term then—Ernst Van Dyck took the title role. America first heard the opera in 1894 when Jean de Reszke, a famous Lohengrin, Tristan, Siegfried (not to mention Radames) sang the title role opposite Emma Eames. And Eames, a glacial beauty from New England with an enormous voice, was hardly the mezzo soprano who nowadays is cast as Charlotte. The opera was revived in New York in 1909 with the French tenor Edmond Clement and Geraldine Farrar. Clement was closer to the lighter-voiced tenors often cast as Werther today; Farrar was a famous Butterfly, Carmen and Tosca, again not a mezzo. Werther returned to the Met in 1970, when Franco Corelli and Christa Ludwig starred in a new production conducted by Alain Lombard. Again, he’s not the elegant French tenor, and she’s a Kundry, a Marschallin, a Farberin.
Making sense of opera casting might be an interesting party game or give fodder to the Internet lists. Better still to listen to this 1931 performance with Georges Thill and Ninon Vallin, with the chorus and orchestra of the Paris Opera conducted by Elie Cohen.
Werther is a hyper-romantic young man whose appearance in Goethe’s novella, The Sorrows of Young Werther inspired a number of young men to commit suicide over romantic slights both real and imagined. The character’s hysteria is built into the score by Massenet through a series of climaxes which, when sung in a controlled fashion, allow the listener to hear a young man gradually falling apart, not a tenor raving.
Alfredo Kraus understood this, so did Neil Shicoff. The absence from the catalogues of Cesare Valetti’s recorded excepts—with a superb Rosalind Elias—is a shame.
Which brings us to Georges Thill.
Born in 1897, Thill had been a formidable star at the Paris Opera when he came to the Met in 1931. He lasted ten performances and went home. His use of the voix mixte in Faust in particular discouraged both critics and audiences. In Europe, his roles included Faust, Duke of Mantua, Parsifal, Canio, Tannhauser and Arnold in Guilliaume Tell. Records display not a heroic-sized voice, but a perfectly placed sound with a compact tone and a delicious point of the text. Like a light-voiced soprano he must have sung the big Wagner and Verdi roles with more projection than force. And good for him, since his career lasted nearly 40 years.
He is a Werther both elegant and strong. The slightly wooden tone might be off-putting, but as one listens to this performance, the illumination of the words is a revelation, the sun breaking through the clouds. His “reve, extase, bonheur” in Act I is a well built and sculpted phrase, and he easily rides the orchestral climax a few bars later. “O Charlotte, je vous aime, et je vous amire” is a perfectly colored phrase, each note sung full out—not necessarily forte—filling out the vocal line. And what a joy to hear the A sharps in “Pourquoi me reveiller” peal out so fearlessly! This is Werther not as wimp or as hysteric, but as an honest young man caught by forces—his devotion to Charlotte—that he can’t control. He is driven to suicide in this performance; he is not suicidal from the outset.
Bob Levine’s fine notes to this 2-CD set hint deliciously at the antipathy of Thill and his leading lady, the soprano Ninon Vallin. Again, to those of us used to a mezzo in this music (and who would want to be without Tatiana Troyanos’ Charlotte?), Vallin’s reedy soprano will take a minute’s adjustment. But just a minute. You will feel the cold breezes through the room, the fear and the emptiness of her performance of the ‘larmes’ aria. Her two words at the end of Act II, “pour toujours,” tell the story of a woman coming to the end of her rope. In two words.
Don’t miss this great performance, with a supporting cast and an orchestra who must have performed the opera together in the theater many times. The French soubrette Germaine Feraldy—who became a formidable Lakme—sings a bright, pouty Sophie and Marcel Rocque and Armand Narcon are fine as Albert and the Bailiff. Voices presented in good proportion to one another, characters who listen to what the others are singing and who match tone and vocal color, who sing the score with clarity, sincerity and style, these are the hallmarks of this formidable Werther. Buy it.
Nineteen thirty one was a good year for opera recordings. While Werther was before the early electronic mikes at the Paris Opera, Ponchielli’s La Gioconda was holding forth at La Scala, Milan, with a house cast conducted by Lorenzo Molajoli. By house cast I mean the artists one might hear in Italian operas on any given evening at the theater. They would have performed together often, and their measure of each other’s strengths can be appreciated even more in a “get in there and fight” opera like Gioconda. This 1931 recording from Milan is the latest of the Naxos CD issues, with the restoration and production done by the brilliant Ward Marston. No, this is not state-of-the-art digital sound, but is as good as any broadcast sound through the 1950s. These Naxos sets are bargains, treasures in fact, with a retail price of approx $5.00 per disc.
Werther is an opera of subtlety, an opera balanced well between emotion and restraint. La Gioconda has nothing to do with restraint. You either have the vocal chops for this opera, full-voiced dramatic singing, or you don’t. Here’s an opera made for the phrase “over the top.” Yet one of the greatest of all Giocondas, Zinka Milanov, made history every time she took the pianissimo B flat in the first act (“Enzo adorato…ah com’e t’amo!”) If restraint isn’t necessary, some vocal finesse often is. The tenor hit, “Cielo e mar” is a love song after all and loses its effectiveness when trampled over. In this performance we find soprano Giannina Arangi-Lombardi in the title role, with Alessandro Granda as Enzo, and baritone Gaetano Viviani as Barnaba all conducted by Lorenzo Molajoli. The young Ebe Stignani, an Italian mezzo with a world class career, is heard as Laura. Here’s a performance sung, not shouted, with no cheap effects. This is an honest, straightforward interpretation of an exciting opera which respects the piece as music and drama. And it’s still a hell of a lot of fun. Arangi-Lombardi (a Norma, a famous Lucrezia Borgia, an Aida) is a biting soprano with an edge to her voice that rides effortlessly over the Act III concertato. Her piannisimi may lack Milanov’s float but the tone is secure and rock steady. Her “Suicidio” is sung fearlessly without swooping into a blotty chest voice. The duets with Stignani blaze away as intended, but they are musical and the singers serve the opera, not the other way around.
With a tenor who combines romantic sweetness with strength and a marvelously dark, snarly baritone, this is a superb performance of an opera easy to ridicule and easy to enjoy. The set includes a batch of arias sung by Arangi-Lombardi. The tiles include two excerpts from Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia proving that the bel canto revival antedated Maria Callas by several years. This recording is not only an important historical document but also a thrilling performance. Again, don’t just sit there! Buy this, too.
