Verdi's Ernani on DVD and CD

"Ernani", Verdi's fifth opera (1844), is based on Victor Hugo's "Hernani", and it's a work that's been described as fustian, a kind of Robin Hood-esque farrago of unlikely situations and improbable characters. I wouldn't disagree with that view, but it doesn't prevent me from enjoying it hugely. This is because Verdi (1813-1901) pours out memorable melodies with a kind of hectic profligacy, creating non-stop opportunities for his four principals. They are Ernani, the disenfranchised nobleman Don Giovanni d'Arragona, masquerading as a bandit (a tenor of course); his would-be wife Elvira (soprano); Elvira's repeatedly spurned suitor, King Carlo V of Castille (baritone), and Elvira's guardian, the elderly nobleman Silva (basso), who being in charge of the lady is poised at the beginning of the opera to marry her and settle things before they get underway. But no.

This is an opera that was considered kind of old-fashioned within 20 years of its premiere, along with pretty much all of Verdi's works up to his break-through trilogy, "Rigoletto"(1851), "il Trovatore" (1853), and "la Traviata" ( 1853). These were Verdi's 16th, 17th and 18th operas. A quick look at the numbers yields the startling fact that between his first opera, "Oberto", premiered in 1839, and "Rigoletto" in 1851, Verdi composed, prepared and saw staged 16 full-length operas--in 15 years. He referred to that time as his "years in the galley", and he had in mind a trireme rowed by slaves, not a kitchen. Unlike Rossini (1792-1868), who produced operas at an even faster pace, Verdi re-used virtually no material. Verdi's early works are propulsive, energetic and often frankly crude. Every one is a completely sincere work of art, but they are not (with some arguable exceptions, especially "Macbeth", written in 1846-47 and revised extensively 1864-65) masterpieces, in the sense in which that term is usually understood. They are, like some of Shakespeare's lesser plays, often a bit of a mess. Many of these works are plagued by miserable libretti, but every one of them is stuffed full of tunes. If you like tunes (serious composers really weren't allowed to write tunes after a certain point in the 20th century) you may like these operas. If your idea of a good time is Arnold Schoenberg's (1874-1951) "Moses und Aaron" (1930-32, unfinished) you may not. An ability to enjoy Robin Hood is a big help, too.

These works were written for an audience that wanted, above all, to hear singing. They wanted to hear new works, not revivals. Paris was the undisputed capital of the opera world, and French works were enjoyed in translation, but the Italian audience would remain bewildered if not openly hostile to Wagner until the composer was dead. These works are very much of their time and place, and many of them are thinly-veiled calls to revolution, because the Italian Peninsula was largely under Austrian rule; in fact, there was no "Italy" yet, and there wouldn't be for decades. The rulers of fragmented Italy were very careful about what they allowed on the stage. Nationalism was sweeping across Europe, and censorship was an inescapable fact of operatic life. Venetians and Milanese, Neapolitans and Romans and everyone else were feeling passionate about the idea of "Italy," but this passion could not be openly expressed. But the audience was well aware that when Verdi set a magnificent ensemble for rebellious nobles in Act III, it wasn't only "the lion of Castille" that was aroused, it was their own nationalistic aspirations. Most of these early works include a chorus that became part of the rising tide that would become the Risorgimento; the most famous is "Va pensiero" from "Nabucco", Verdi's first great success. Verdi's name itself became a rallying cry: Patriots scrawled "Viva Verdi" across walls throughout the Peninsula. It was understood to mean "Viva Vittorio Emmanuele, Re d'Italia."

A modern audience may be aware of this background, and appreciate "Ernani" more for that, but there's no getting around the fact that the motivations of the characters are mostly unbelievable to us. Silva wants to marry Elvira, who wants to marry Ernani. The king wants to marry Elvira, but wants to be made Holy Roman Emperor more. The King and Silva want to kill Ernani because, well, he's supposedly a bandit. Ernamni wants to avenge his father's death and marry Elvira, but these objectives are mutually exclusive. When Ernani and Elvira finally overcome all these obstacles and get married, Silva blows a hunting horn and Ernani is obliged to kill himself, which, in front of the much put-upon Elvira, he does. OK, this is not an easy sell, depending as it does on our understanding and accepting the Code of Honor of a feudal civilization seen through the filter of some pretty pissed-off Italians. It seems frankly incredible to people today. So, why would anyone want to hear this work anymore? Unless you really like Robin Hood a lot, it's all for the singing.

A performance under Riccardo Muti (b. 1941) is available on DVD. The production, by Luca Ronconi (b. 1933) opened the 1982/83 La Scala season; it stars Placido Domingo (b. 1941), Mirella Freni (b. 1935), Renato Bruson (b. 1936) and Nicolai Ghiaurov 1929-2004). The production is traditional, if not realistic, and Ronconi is at pains to tell the story. Contemporary Regietheater often is not concerned with that, so this is a production that many will consider old-fashioned. The first scene places Ernani on a plinth to sing his entirely conventional first aria and cabaletta. Choristers and supers dressed as audience members watch the action from upstage in several scenes. This puts us at a distance from the work from the start, and for me this works well: we're invited to see "Ernani" as a theatrical object, and relieved of the need to engage the plot directly, which, as I've indicated, is close to impossible. Let's just go to the opera, shall we?

The costumes, in the main, appear to be from about Verdi's own time, or at least what people in his era would have expected "accurate" historical costumes to look like. None of the singers is required to appear in a costume or wig that's intentionally unflattering, which is refreshing (a recent "Ring" production has Brunnehilde wearing what appears to be a picket fence). Muti is among the outstanding Verdi conductors of the post-war period, and everything is scrupulously "come scritto" (as written). Because Silva's cabaletta following "Infelice, e tu credevi" was not part of Verdi's original (he added it for a subsequent production to please the basso) he omits it here. Ghiaurov (who married Freni in 1978), was one of the greatest bass singers of his time, but he is a little rusty here, so losing the cabaletta is not so bad. He suffers only in comparison to his own earlier recordings, though, and he is a commanding presence throughout. Nobody is a match for Christoff, that lion, and Siepi, in both the Del Monaco performances (see below) is close to ideal, in his absolute prime and singing in his native language. And nobody was taking that cabaletta away from either of those artists. For old Silva on records, then, an embarrassment of riches.

Domingo, still singing principal parts at 68, long ago earned a place among the greatest tenors in the history of opera. I believe he is unique in the breadth of his repertoire and in his vocal longevity, leaving aside his great accomplishments as a conductor and administrator. The man is a giant. He sings a very fine Ernani, marred only slightly by the relative tightness of his highest notes and the fact that his committed, imaginative acting can feel a little generalized. These are small quibbles. The finest Ernani's on disc (both in live performances) are Franco Corelli in a 1965 Met broadcast with Leontyne Price (b.1927), Mario Sereni (b. 1928) and Cesare Siepi (b. 1923) under Thomas Schippers (1930-1977) ; and Mario del Monaco (1915-1982) in one from the 1957 Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with Anita Cerquetti (b. 1931), Ettore Bastianini (1922-1967) and Boris Christoff (1914-1993) under Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896-1960). Both are dramatic tenors, with headlong, impassioned singing styles that suit this volatile, larger-than-life character. A friend of mine used to call del Monaco "Mario del Maniac". Another Mitropoulos performance, from the Met, in '56, teams the tenor with Zinka Milanov (1906-1989), Leonard Warren (1911-1960), and Siepi. Carlo Bergonzi is a fine Ernani in the RCA set with Price; Pavarotti sang the part late in his career; the commercial set with Sutherland (b. 1926) was not released for several years after it was recorded, and it's not hard to see why: it is a dull affair, with Sutherland in particularly unsteady voice, and Pavarotti sounding his by-then advanced age. "Ernani" is a lot of things, but dull should never be one of them.

Freni sings a lovely performance in a role that requires, ideally, a larger voice than hers. Always a fine singer and a resourceful artist, she gives an extended lesson in safely negotiating an assignment too heavy for an essentially lyric voice, much as she does in complete recordings of "Aida" and "Don Carlos", among others. Italian dramatic sopranos have vanished, and if the works are to be performed, lighter voices must serve. The many low-lying passages are deftly handled and her singing is never less than lovely. Price is preferable, although her lower register is obviously produced differently from the rest of the voice, and it turns husky and "smoky," an effect which grew more pronounced over time. Cerquetti, a unique artist whose meteoric career left only a few commercial recordings, is very fine, and her vocal weight is appropriate to Elvira's demanding music.

The role of Carlo, the King of Castille, is one of Verdi's long line of great baritone roles, beginning with Nabucco and following through all the way to Falstaff. Carlo has several demanding arias, and Bruson meets the challenge with something like complete success. The voice is in excellent condition, and barring an occasional gruff high note, he commands the long line and the myriad expressive markings with real authority and considerable grandeur. He is worthy to stand next to the great Leonard Warren, which is about as high a compliment as a baritone can be paid, and since he's singing his own language, in that respect his Carlo might even be thought preferable. He has not so long a line as Cappucilli (in a live '72 performance from Verona, in rather poor sound), but his voice has much more character and individuality. All Bruson's singing in this role is magisterial, and it's his performance that most ideally serves the composer's demands.

All in all, creaky old "Ernani" is well-served by this DVD, and even better by some of the CD versions available. If you like Robin Hood, you may have fun with "Ernani".

"Les Urnes de l'Opera" A Time Capsule

This is an overview of the opera world of a century ago, and a fascinating one. The set includes a very interesting booklet, but no English translations. My French is not adequate to translate the essay, so much of the mystery of these ancient urns waiting through the whole of the 20th century in the dark cellars beneath the Paris Opera still clings to them. Among the mysteries: there are 60 tracks, not the expected 48. Here's part of the press release:


On 24th December 1907, 48 gramophone records were buried in the basement of the Paris Opéra. The instructions were to leave them there for 100 years.
The project was the brainchild of Alfred Clark, founder and president of EMI’s ancestor, the International Gramophone Company. His aim was to enlighten the citizens of the 21st century as to “the voices of the principal singers of our time and the interpretations they gave of some of the most famous pieces from the lyric and dramatic repertoire.”

The 48 records, released by the Compagnie du Gramophone in the first years of the 20th century, were unearthed in December 2007 and then restored with enormous care by the technicians of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, in collaboration with EMI Classics.

Now the contents of the so-called ‘Urnes de l’Opéra’ are being released by EMI Classics in partnership with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Opéra National de Paris and the Association pour le Rayonnement de l’Opéra national de Paris.

These musical treasures from the early days of the record label are introduced with a visionary speech from Firmin Gémier, the celebrated actor and director who founded France’s Théâtre National Populaire in 1920.


All in all, this is a beautifully produced issue with dozens of great singers, Italians, Germans, Russians as well as French. These recordings are what Mr. Alfred Clark and the management of the Paris Opera considered most representative of the best of their time, and that gives the collection more than usual stylistic coherence and historical relevance; these recordings were intended to be heard together. On a brilliantly sunny, cool, perfect San Francisco day I'm having a lot of fun listening to these gloriously restored treasures.

Studio Recordings vs. Live Recordings

Recordings of complete operas fall into two main categories: studio recordings and "live" ones. In recent years the cost of making studio recordings has risen dramatically, while the executives in charge of record companies have concentrated on turning a profit in a short time, so studio recordings have become very rare. Many famous recordings of the 50's and 60's have been in continuous release ever since they were first published, amortized their costs long ago, and have been profitably sliced and diced into dozens of compilation discs. But the industry—or what remains of it—has now adopted the business model of popular music, and if a recording doesn't sell a lot of copies very fast, it isn't considered viable. Complete operas do not sell enough copies quickly enough to fit this business model. By default, most recordings of complete operas are now live, most often filmed in performance in the opera house and sold on DVD. Films of operas are another matter. Lip-synching singers we'll leave for another time.

While it's sad that studio recordings have become so rare, the comparative abundance of live performances has created a vigorous new market for "real" performances. Whereas studio sets usually had an active intention to create an "ideal" or even "definitive" version of a given work, filmed opera performances are often "records" in another sense: records of specific productions. The contemporary contributions of set and costume designers are rarely directly derived from the composer's written instructions. And when the stage director gets busy, it's much more common for the composer's stated desires to be ignored, if not actively contradicted, then for them to be respected. What results is a film of a particular interpretation of a work. I would argue that that's a very good thing, although it's obvious that not every filmed production is a success.

Studio recordings began in the early years of the 20th century, and were limited in many ways. The singers voices were the main objects of attention, and because of the primitive conditions under which these sets were made, very little actual orchestral sound made its way onto the shellac sides eventually offered for sale. Because only a short amount of music could be recorded, sometimes as much as 4 minutes, but often as little as 2 or 3, musical continuity in playback was impossible. Apart from the technical difficulty of producing sides that accurately matched up, the listener had to stop the record after each side, carefully remove that disc (or cylinder) and replace it in its protective packaging, take out the next record and carefully place it on the turntable and start the music again. All of this took time, and the sense of a complete performance was difficult to obtain, at best.

All this changed by the early 50's, and with the flood of complete sets that poured forth came a new attitude. Producers now wanted to capture not just a performance, but something that summed up the composer's intentions. We weren't buying just another performance of "Carmen", we were being offered "Carmen" as an object that came as close as possible to what the composer had imagined in his head. And that quest for perfection and desire to define the work brought some new wrinkles. With the ability to seamlessly splice magnetic tape came the ability to correct mistakes, in both vocal and orchestral performances. When Wilhelm Furtwangler (1886-1953) conducted Kirsten Flagstad (1895-1962) in "Tristan und Isolde" in 1951, Flagstad could no longer reach some of the exposed high notes in the role; Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1915-2006), the wife of the recording's producer, Walter Legge (1906-1979), was spliced in singing them for her. Once stereo arrived (in the shops by 1958) microphone technique had made great advances. At first only 2 microphones were used, but within a few years recording studios bristled with dozens, allowing orchestral details to be displayed as nobody but conductors and second violinists had ever heard them before, and manipulated with great virtuosity. Soon every section of the orchestra had its own microphone (or 3) and every soloist her own track, all of them fed by the dozens into huge mixing consoles. If the baritone was too loud in the quartet, the volume of his track could be lowered to please the tenor. If a singer couldn't hit that high C on the particular day the big aria was being recorded, it could be recorded again and again until she did hit it. And if she still couldn't hit it after many takes, her best effort could be speeded up very slightly to make up the difference. If she couldn't produce the diminuendo called for in the score, the engineers could lower the volume of her track to give the impression that she had. And eventually, if Mr. Domingo or Mr. Pavarotti couldn't be present in Paris during September to record his part of duets and ensembles, he could be recorded later—sometimes years later—and that track seamlessly integrated into the master tape. But is the result "a performance" at all? By the height of the digital era, when CD's were selling in large numbers and several dozen operas were being released every year, a typical "performance" might be assembled from literally thousands of very brief takes recorded over many months. Hearing was no longer believing.

Of course, singers really don't sound in the theater just as they do on recordings. Many smallish voices carry surprisingly well, but some get lost altogether; on records it's very hard to tell. Dramatic voices are harder to record than lyrics, so some artists get ignored by record companies; Leonie Rysanek (1926-1998), one of the most important sopranos of the post war period, made few commercial recordings; she was nearly impossible to record because her top sounded as loud as the whole orchestra. Birgit Nilsson (1918-2005) recorded frequently, but few of those recordings really capture the visceral excitement of her amazing high notes. The recordings Kirsten Flagstad made in her prime are impressive, but not quite like what an old timer told me about her: in the house, he claimed, her high notes were "like getting hit in the face with a baseball bat." Boris Christoff (1914-1993) is reputed to have had a rather small voice; on records he sounds enormous. And in general, almost all voices sound larger on records than the actual experience of hearing them in the theater. They tend to be miked more closely, so many record collectors (myself occasionally included) prefer to hear opera on records instead of in the opera house.

Of course, many live performances, largely airchecks, have survived from the time the microphone was introduced around 1925. Dozens of singers who made few or no commercial recordings have been preserved, Leyla Gencer (1928-2008) for example, an important artist who had a major career but whose legacy would be lost entirely were it not for her dozens of complete broadcast performances. Without the many great live performances of Maria Callas (1923-1977), we would hardly know what magic she made in live performance, no matter how wonderful her earlier studio recordings unquestionably are. Gertrude Grob-Prandl (1917-1995), an important post-war Wagnerian comes to mind, as does Astrid Varnay (1918-2006), who made more than a few commercial recordings, but whose live performances, especially from Bayreuth, are revelatory.

What we hear in these live recordings is not an abstraction or a musical mosaic, but, for better or worse, an evening in the theater. Stage noises, mistakes, hoarseness, flat high notes (or sharp ones), all manner of blunders abound. With DVD's we get absurd sets, unflattering costumes, directorial conceits, a good look at dental work, and often the rueful awareness that Madame X looks nothing at all like Mimi or Tosca, or Herr Z is much too old and stout to make anything like a passable (visual) Siegfried. But we get a real performance. With studio recordings, we get something more, and less.

A New "Butterfly" Takes Wing

Although we were told a few years ago that the EMI "Tristan", with Domingo (b. 1941) finally in the title role, opposite the excellent Nina Stemme (b. 1963), would be the last studio recording of a complete opera, now comes Antonio Pappano's exciting new "Madama Butterfly". Pappano has been Music Director of Covent Garden since 2002, and Music Director of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia since 2005. Recorded in Rome with the latter orchestra, this set brims with an exuberant sense of spontaneity and genuine Italianita, although the title role is taken very successfully by the Romanian Diva Angela Gheorghiu (b. 1965), and Pinkerton is sung by the rising German tenor star Jonas Kaufmann (b. 1969). The set feels, very pleasantly, like an echo from the heyday of the classical record industry, when singers trooped off to Italy (or London or Vienna) every summer to record, and collectors looked forward eagerly to stacks of new complete recordings in due course. It was another time, and it's useful to remember that a lot of those sets can seem generic, and many were assigned to inappropriate conductors. Erich Leinsdorf (1912-1993), for example, a fine conductor in the German repertoire, made a lot of recordings that give the distinct impression that he's embarrassed by the music ("Aida", "Turandot", "Il Tabarro") and rushing through the parts he dislikes—which are many.

Antonio Pappano (b. 1959) is an excellent conductor, and he guides this exciting performance with complete mastery, unembarrassed by Puccini's passion, while always supporting his singers and breathing with them. He draws playing of wonderful color and fire from his Italian orchestra, and the excellent recording team, also Italian, brings it very convincingly to disc. I have no idea how many of these orchestra musicians have played "Butterfly" before, but they obviously have this music in their blood. I find their playing preferable here to the more international style most opera orchestras, even the very best ones, provide. The supporting cast is generally fine. This is a very idiomatic "Butterfly" in nearly every respect.

And those respects are the soprano and tenor leads. Gheorghiu, whom I've heard twice in San Francisco in the last year or so, first as Magda in Puccini's "La Rondine", and more recently as Mimi in "La Boheme", would seem to be something of a Puccini specialist lately. The voice, although rather dark in color, is a little on the small side for Cio-Cio-san. The character demands great subtlety and reticence to be believable, but the role is very long, and she has a lot of music that requires a spinto. Once she makes her delayed entrance, singing an offstage aria capped by a high D, (a difficult note for most spintos) she rarely leaves the stage. A purely lyric soprano would find the love duet taxing, but possibly manageable, but that's just the beginning of the challenges. After "Un bel di", the letter scene in Act II turns quite dramatic. "Ah, mi scordata!" is very heavy musically and emotionally, and the orchestration is dense and loud. At the very end, the suicide scene is very demanding, over a heavy orchestra, and the singer has been working hard all evening. That can be overcome in a recording, but I don't expect Ms. Gheorghiu to sing this part onstage. Pappano, who has recorded often with Gheorghiu, supports her perfectly here, and she navigates the dangers unharmed. She colors her naturally beautiful instrument with great imagination and delicacy. She has some of the shimmering beauty of de los Angeles, some of the beautiful word-pointing of Scotto, a little of the depth of character of Callas, and an individuality of voice and utterance all her own. She sings a very fine Butterfly here.

Jonas Kaufmann is, I think, the most interesting tenor now singing, Villazon (b. 1972) and Florez (b.1973) included. Now 40, Kaufmann has arrived at his absolute prime, and he sings a daringly broad repertoire: it includes Des Grieux in Massenet's "Manon", Jose in Bizet's "Carmen", and he's singing "Lohengrin" at the Bavarian State Opera this season. The voice is an exciting one, baritonal and commanding, but he is also able to sing at any volume level throughout his range—and he caps the love duet with a high C that any tenor would be thrilled to have, and it is an easy, large, full note that thrills the listener as well. I have not heard him in the theater, so I can't say if the voice is as large as it sounds on records; sometimes tenors, especially German-speaking tenors, have smaller voices than their recordings lead one to hope. Mr. Kaufmann's voice does not sound like a small one. He is aslo an exceptionally fine actor. Pinkerton has little to sing after Act I, and with Kauffman in the role, that is a shame. In the love duet he constantly refines his tone to match Gheorghiu, never bellows, never croons, is always inside the character, and generally covers himself with glory. If he has any fault here at all, it might be that he seems a little too much the (vocal) gentleman. Kaufmann is that great rarity among tenors, an artist of immaculate taste. There is no trace of vulgarity in his singing--he reminds me of Nicolai Gedda in this respect, who partners both de los Angeles in this role under Beecham, and Callas under von Karajan, both by 1955. This is a tenor who has also reminded me in other recordings, with his baritonal, heroic vocal stance, a little of Vickers, without that great singer's idiosyncrasies. But when I hear this singer, I see his face. Jonas Kaufmann sounds like nobody but Jonas Kaufmann, and that, for me, is the mark of the great singer. I will be sure to collect every Jonas Kaufmann recording I can find, and I hope there are many, many more. I would love to hear him as Calaf or Dick Johnson. This is a tenor with a great career before him, in fact, a singer who can choose several different paths--Italian, French, and German Fachs--or Wagner. Jonas Kaufmann as Siegmund, Tristan, Siegfried...that might be a kind of heroic dream come true. But surely there would be no more Puccini or Massenet if he chose that path. I will follow his career with fascination and enthusiasm.

In short, an excellent new "Madama Butterfly". If you'd like to make comparisons, I'd suggest Scotto and Bergonzi under Barbarolli, Callas and Gedda under von Karajan, Tebaldi and Campora under Erede, dal Monte and Gigli under de Fabritiis.

Jon Vickers--or not?

Jon Vickers (b. 1926) is one of the great singers of the post-war period. He debuted as Don Jose in "Carmen" in 1956, and arrived at Covent garden the next year. I heard him in the theater only once, around '72 or so, as Otello at the Met; Sherrill Milnes was Iago. The title role in Verdi's "Otello" was one of the Canadian tenor's greatest achievements. He recorded it under Serafin in 1960 with Tito Gobbi and Leonie Rysanek, and again for Karajan a decade or so later. His other great parts included Peter Grimes in Britten's eponymous work, Parsifal, Tristan, Siegmund in "Die Walkure", Aeneas in Berlioz "Les Troyens", Samson, and, among several other roles, Florestan in Beethoven's only opera, "Fidelio."

Vickers was a unique artist. His temperament was often described as "volcanic", his interpretations were frequently idiosyncratic, and he was a famously difficult personality. He feuded famously with Solti, or there would be many more commercial recordings to follow the "Aida" he recorded opposite Price in 1960. His voice was very large, with plenty of squillo and a basically metallic quality. He was never less than thrilling, often less than lovely. In fact, "lovely" would have been a term he scorned. This is a singer who can be identified within a few seconds. Nobody sang like Vickers. Nobody sounded like Vickers.

Which brings us to Florestan in "Fidelio", one of his most celebrated roles. Vickers recorded the part commercially twice, first under Otto Klemperer in a 1963 EMI set with a great cast: Christa Ludwig as Leonore, Gottlob Frick as Rocco, Walter Berry as Pizarro, and later under Karajan, opposite Helga Dernesch (it's interesting to note that both Ludwig and Dernesch began their careers as mezzos, and both finished them as mezzos after singing the dramatic soprano repertoire for several years). There is no dearth of live performances of Fidelio with Vickers; I have three in my collection, and I'm sure there are several more. I've been listening to a very interesting live recording from the Vienna Staatsoper, under Karajan, DGG477 7364, released last year to considerable acclaim. It stars Ludwig in her role debut, with Berry (Ludwig's husband at the time) again as Pizarro, the magnificent Gundula Janowitz, who would later record Leonore in this opera under Bernstein, as Marzelline, and an excellent cast under Karajan. Who's the tenor? Well, Vickers is listed as Florestan. But it isn't Vickers on the discs.

When the set was released a common caveat in reviews was that Vickers was "out of voice" but rallied to give an impassioned performance. The liner notes say Vickers "was evidently indisposed...thereby lessening the impact of his aria at the start of Act Two...in the rest of the Dungeon Scene he too achieves moments of great expressivity, inspired—like the other singers—by the excitement of the evening...". It's amazing to me that EMI, and the Vienna State Opera, have allowed this glaring error to occur. Not only does this not sound like Vicker's voice—which is immediately recognizable—this tenor doesn't phrase like Vickers, has a very different vibrato from Vickers, and is obviously (unlike Vickers) a native German speaker. There have been plenty of live "pirate" performances in general circulation with incorrect cast lists; a starry live "Otello" from the Met (de los Angeles, del Monaco and Warren)claimed that the conductor was Melik-Pechayev because they didn't want to be sued, which the Met used to do to keep control of the broadcast material. But this is DG, releasing an offcially sanctioned performance from the Vienna State Opera. This is a real scandal.

So, who is the tenor? First of all, he doesn't sound indisposed to me, he sounds a little rusty and no longer young. Beethoven's vcal writing is notoriously awkward, and the part is very difficult, but he gives a perfectly adequate performance (that sounds not at all like Jon Vickers). Comparing several tenors from contemporaneous live performances, I believe it's the Heldentenor Hans Beirer. Beirer made few if any commercial recordings (he sings Herod in Bohm's film of "Elektra") but a number of live performances have been issued. There is a "Parsifal" under Knappertsbusch from Bayreuth, with Crespin as Kundry, available on the Gala label, and he sounds a lot like our Vienna Florestan. Beirer (1911-1993) was a valuable singer, if without much of the vocal grandeur and glamour of Jon Vickers. He would have been a little over 50 when this performance was recorded, and this tenor sounds around that age. If, indeed, this is Hans Beirer as Florestan, he deserves to be credited. It's an excellent example of a worthy singer saving a performance, since Vickers must have been announced and forced to cancel because of indisposition. And because we have relatively few recordings of Herr Beirer, this performance is of some little historical interest. Baldelli left another "Parsifal", a fascinating one, because the Kundry is Maria Callas (she also sang Isolde and the "Walkure" Brunnehilde). Beirer seems to be one of the unluckiest tenors, because in most releases of that set, sung in Italian, with Rolando Panerai is Amfortas and Boris Christoff as Gurnemanz, the tenor is identifed as "Africo Baldelli." Adding insult to injury, a famous, and possibly true, anecdote has Callas refusing to kiss him because of, um, olfactory issues. Being a tenor can be tough.

The Golden Age

Were singers really better in some long-lost Golden Age?

To refresh my memory, I turned to the Romophone "Complete recordings of Battistini (1856-1928), Volume One", intending to sample a few tracks. 70-odd minutes later, my face hurting from repeated and sustained jaw-dropping, I had rediscovered the most technically faultless vocalism on record, and perhaps the greatest baritone voice. Battistini is the oldest indisputedly great singer to make records while still in his prime. He made a sensational debut at 22 and continued to sing, unimpaired, until his death. He was lionized by the public and the proverbial Crowned Heads of Europe (the Tsar welcomed him back to Russia for decades, until there was no more Tsar). He was called "the King of Baritones" and "The Glory of Italy". To listen to him in these recordings made in the first decade of the 20th century, when he was around 50, is to hear the bel canto technique as he perfected it 25 years or so earlier. He did not invent the technique, he inhabited it as it had been practiced for decades before, so listening to him allows us to infer with a high degree of confidence how singers used their voices at least from the middle of the 19th century. For some context, I followed Battistini by listening to the tenor Fernando de Lucia (1860-1925) for another hour. My jaw will probably never be the same. These singers can do anything, anything at all, with their voices. I've "known" these recordings for decades, but it had been a long time since I'd really listened to them.

When I was a (very odd) teenager, the stereo boom was in full flood. Although complete recordings of operas had been made from the first decade of the 20th century on, they were very unwieldy—78's were heavy and easily broken—and they were quite expensive. For all these reasons, they were rare. Things got easier with the invention of the microphone around 1925. Before that, performers sang with their faces in a horn; assistant conductors pushed them forward for lower, quieter passages, and backward when they got higher and louder. Only about 4 minutes could be recorded at a time. Across the room a pianist, or sometimes a handful of instrumentalists, made noises that it was hoped would register on the matrix as well. Since the recording device was operated by a hand crank, speed--and therefore pitch--was variable. Few "78's" actually play at exactly that speed. The microphone changed all that; "acoustic" recordings now gave way to "electrical" ones. When the Germans invented magnetic tape during World War II, things became even easier, but the 78 rpm record could still hold only about 4 minutes per side. A complete "Aida" might run close to 40 heavy, easily broken records.

With the introduction of the LP (long playing) record in the early 50's, it suddenly became much more feasible to record complete operas. Sets poured out in profusion, and they found buyers. With the introduction of stereo a few years later, the major labels raced to replace their still-recent mono sets with new, stereo versions, sometimes with nearly-identical casts. When I went to my first record stores, the browsers were full of big, beautiful boxes with large, easy-to-read, illustrated books inside. If you wanted to save some money (or, like me, buy more recordings with the money you had) the monaural versions were still available, so record shops stocked both. RCA's "Soria Series" sported slip-case boxes with 100+ page, color-illustrated books on good stock, memorably lavish productions. In those incarnations I got to know some of my first complete recordings: The Serafin "Otello" with Vickers, Gobbi and Rysanek; "Die Walkure" under Leinsdorf, with Nilsson, Brouwenstijn, Vickers and London, Karajan's "Carmen" with Price and Corelli. They were gorgeous objects, and I coveted them fiercely. But I was advised not to be dazzled by superficialities. Although these sets were certainly beautifully produced (and even at premium price, cost a fraction of those gritty, fragile old piles of 78's, in real dollars) they lacked something those old artifacts had: really great singers. Today's singers—Birgit Nilsson apart--didn't compare to the Great Old Ones (apologies to H.P. Lovecraft). Price? Well, she's not bad, but really she shouldn't be singing Verdi, her lower voice isn't strong enough, especially for Elvira in "Ernani". Vickers is an interesting tenor, but you should have heard Melchior and Martinelli in this repertoire. I was learning the Golden Rule of opera devotees: "it was a lot better 30 years ago, but not as good as it was 60 years ago".

I was somewhat skeptical, but I listened to ancient recordings from the start, so I had some inkling of what they were talking about. (Looking back to the 60's, I was closer in time to some of those "ancient recordings" than I am today to those fancy Soria Series sets.) One of the fascinating things about opera is that you can hear successive generations of singers perform the same music over a hundred years or more, and then go to the opera tonight and hear that same music performed by a young singer whose career is just beginning. This is what I think I've learned: in terms of individual vocal quality, and certainly in terms of vocal technique (as opposed to musical accuracy) it's been going downhill more or less since recordings were first made. No reasonable person could dispute that singers, as a group, are better musicians today than ever--so are violinists or bassoon players--but vocal technique, the ability to control the voice, has declined. Why should this be so? Is Battistini really that prodigious a singer? Or Plancon, or De Lucia?

The thing that's most gratifying about these singers—-among the very greatest from a technical point of view, but by no means unique in their time---is their ability to make the music entirely their own. Their techniques are so completely dependable that they can do exactly what they want expressively; they have an apparently limitless range of interpretive choices. This sent me to John Steane's wonderful book "The Grand Tradition", where I found a quote that needs sharing (such quotes are abundant in Steane's writing). Speaking of Battistini, de Lucia, and the French basso Paul Plancon (1851-1914), he writes "It was a school that exercised a singer til he had a technique that made him feel lord of creation and then allowed him the freedom to exploit his good or bad taste to the full". That, singers are no longer schooled to do—and if they could be, if techniques like this could miraculously again be taught, they would not be permitted to do. Whether this is the improvement most conductors would claim it to be, is another question.

In the Golden Age, the singer was "lord of creation". In the post World War II period, and really since at least the time of Toscanini (1867-1957), the crown was no longer the singer's, but the conductor's. Toscanini, famous for his volcanic temper, changed forever performance practice in opera. Now the performance would be given "come scritto", "as written." There is no denying that wonderful gains have resulted from Toscanini's iron will and the revolution in performance practice that has followed. And Toscanini would say, probably, that he'd restored the crown to the composer, not usurped it for himself and his musical heirs. But listening to these ancient recordings, I would suggest that more than a little has been lost as well.

Jess Thomas Says Farewell

Remembering the young Jess Thomas, one of the most consistently interesting American singers of the 60's, is a much more rewarding experience than regretting his Rhine Journey.

Jess Thomas made his professional debut at 30, in 1957, singing small roles in "Der Rosenkavalier" and Verdi's "Macbeth" at San Franciso Opera. By 1961 he had arrived at Bayreuth, where he sang Lohengrin ('62, '67), Tannhauser ('66, '67), Walther ('63,'69) in "Die Meistersinger", and Siegfried ('69,'76). His Parsifal ('61-'63,'65) was particularly celebrated—he was awarded the Bayreuth Prize in 1963—and one of the most consistently praised recordings of that work, under Knappertsbusch, captures him in the title role in 1962, opposite the Kundry of Irene Dalis. George London, caught at his peak only shortly before a vocal crisis prematurely ended his career, is a mesmerizing, huge-voiced Amfortas. Hans Hotter, one of the two or three most important Wagner bass-baritones of the century, sings Gurnemanz; and Marti Talvela, at the beginning of a great careeer, is Titurel. The magnificent Gustav Neidlinger, who owned the role of Alberich and sang it hundred of times, is a near-definitive Klingsor. The radiant young Gundula Janowitz, and Anja Silja, lead the Flower Maidens. This is an irreplaceable recording, in very fine sound.

In the studio, he recorded "Lohengrin" under Kempe, with Elisabeth Grummer, Christa Ludwig, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gottlob Frick. "Lohengrin" has fared well on records, and this is one of the very best, with a perfectly balanced cast of great singers, all of whom (apart from Thomas) are native German speakers. They are all completely inside the tradition, and Thomas is the glowing center of a recording of great power and authority. It is also a very beautifully sung performance, with no weak links--Fritz Wunderlich sings a small supporting role--which immediately sets it apart.

From the tenor's early years are German language studio recordings of "Forza" and "Ballo". I have heard only selections from those recordings, but I'd like to hear the rest. From 1962 on, twenty or more live performances have been available, and I have yet to hear one in which he sings with anything less than faultless musicianship, committed, intelligent characterization, immaculate diction, and often thrilling vocal prowess. He is a particularly fine Emperor in "Die Frau Ohne Schatten" by Richard Strauss, and his Bacchus in "Ariadne auf Naxos", opposite Janowitz, is really splendid. New York Philharmonic concerts under Bernstein capture him with Eileen Farrell in extended excerpts from "Tristan" and "Die Gotterdammerung"; they are spectacular. Not only is the huge-voiced Farrell in wonderful voice, Thomas is her peer, and Bernstein supports them both with a deeply expressive subtlety of dynamics and line that allow them to sing quietly more often than is usual in these super-charged scenes. Both of these heroic American singers benefit. These are legendary recordings, rare, but well worth hunting for. The sound is very good, considering the source: a tape recorder on somebody's lap. There is an additional part, "Man who Coughs"; he is evidently an experienced performer, but he wants to hear the concert, so he doesn't interject very often. When he does, he creates a pretty vivid sense of being present in a theatre, which makes the singing that much more immediate and thrilling. There's also a complete Act I of "Die Walkure" with Farrell and Bernstein, unfortunately not with Thomas. His rival James King, himself a worthy artist, is Siegmund. This is a role not much associated with Thomas, although I have read that a performance exists in sound; I would be very interested in hearing it.

Thomas was invited to open the new Met in 1966, in Samuel Barber's "Antony and Cleopatra", a sumptuous, old-fashioned piece that could fairly be called Grand Opera. (Sam Barber's Aunt was the American contralto Louise Homer, one of the most famous and important singers of the first decades of the 20th century). Franco Zeffirelli directed an all-American cast, headed by Leontyne Price and featuring the very handsome young Puerto Rican bass, Justino Diaz. The production was intended to show off the new stage, a couple of blocks deep, with flies large enough to keep 3 or 4 full productions hanging while another played on stage. It was equipped with several elevators, computerized lighting, and, significantly, a gigantic turntable. On opening night, as Price sat atop a huge pyramid, just like Elizabeth Taylor in the then recently-released film "Cleopatra", the turntable started rotating, then stopped, lurched, and failed. The opera went down in flames. (Samuel Barber also wrote "Vanessa", a highly successful Met premiere in the previous decade, with Eleanor Steber, Rosalind Elias, Nocolai Gedda and Georgio Tozzi. RCA made a commercial recording soon after, and a live performance from Vienna has recently been issued.) Barber was so traumatized by the cruel reviews that he said later that it had finished his career, and he wrote little afterwards.

Thomas opened the Met again after the disastrous strike that crippled the 1969 season, as Radames (again opposite Price). It can be admitted that the voice is not Italianate without denying that it is a very well-sung characterization, and what is undeniable is that this voice has "face", it's immediately recognizable, it is always deployed with taste and imagination, and it has plenty of power. Like both his American dramatic tenor rivals, James King and James McCraken, Jess Thomas spent his career in the shadow of the eccentric, temperamental and deeply thrilling Jon Vickers. I would not have said this when I was listening to his attempts at the very heaviest roles in the Wagner canon, but 40 years on it's clear to me that Jess Thomas deserves a place among the Great Tenors.


Putting this important artist in his historical context brings us back to 1982 and Jess Thomas' farewell. He sang powerfully, with all his customary taste, imagination and conviction, and it seemed clear that he wasn't stopping because he had to. In Act III he was made up, in the pre-war tradition, as Jesus, a disconcerting, even risible effect, but probably not Thomas' decision. Parsifal is not usually considered funny, but I have to say I found the spectacle of Jess Thomas, disguised as Jesus Christ, singing powerfully in German while Tatiana Troyanos, disguised as Mary Magdalen, washed his feet and dried them with her long black hair---well, it was a Monty Python moment for me. Nobody laughed. I'm sure more than a few people were deeply puzzled and looking around a little nervously. After all, this is what caused all that unpleasantness between Wagner and Nitezsche, right?

But a few dozen people had laughed a couple or three hours earlier, during Act II. I was one of them, but I tried to laugh quietly. I cannot forget the entrance of the Flower Maidens. The designer, Robert O'Hearn, had followed Wagner's explicit (and very often ignored) instructions, and costumed 16 of them, eight singers and eight dancers, as literal flowers. They're wearing flimsy, diaphanous costumes in very lovely colors. They are very pretty, in the way things could be prettty in 1971 or so, when the production was new. Parsifal is standing up right center on the steeply raked stage as eight svelte and sexy dancers make their entrances, one after another, leaping lithely, landing lightly, pastel draperies flying. If a raked stage might be a problem for them, you couldn't tell from looking. Thomas stands rooted to the spot, only his head moving slightly as he appears to count the entrance of each beautiful young thing. He doesn't move an inch, until the "real" Flower Maidens--the ones who sing--begin to enter. Alas, these beautiful-voiced flowers do not much resemble their dancing companions, except in their identical wardrobe: these are Some Big Flowers. But as these hefty Blumenmadchen make their comparatively thunderous entrance, Parsifal is suddenly transfixed, his body language tells us that it's all he can do to get control and not throw himself on them. Indeed, once all eight singers have arrived down left center, he trots gamely after them, visibly impassioned,singing enthusiastically, studiously ignoring all those tall, nubile, (silent) young dancers just a little bit upstage of them. Jess Thomas: an actor to the last. Or maybe, after all those years singing Wagner with big women with big voices, Jess Thomas had become a Chubby Chaser. And that night in 1982, for the very last time, he was going to sing, gloriously, until the Fat Lady shut up.