GREAT PERFORMANCES
The Royal Opera
Boxed set of 32 CDs
Opus Arte OA CD9024 D
COSI FAN TUTTE
Mozart, Currentzis
Sony 88765466162
THE WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER, Books 1 and 2
Bach
John Butt, harpsichord
Linn CDK 463
FOUR LAST SONGS and EIN HELDENLEBEN
Strauss
Barenboim, Netrebko
DG 4793964
September saw the release of a boxed set of CDs called Great Performances. It features 12 operas recorded between 1955 and 1997 at London’s Covent Garden, now the Royal Opera House, and preserved by the BBC (which had originally broadcast them live).
The operas come with remastered sound on 32 CDs from Opus Arte. Many, however, have been issued before on other labels. They’re here also available individually, but only as downloads.
There’s absolutely no doubt as to the legendary status of some of these recordings. I will consider two of them here, and return to the set again next month.
One strange feature of this product is that, though the operas are advertised as coming from 1955 to 1997, there are none at all from the period 1963-70, and only one from 1963 to 1980. Technical and/ or copyright reasons may account for this.
The set opens with Verdi’s Otello from 1955. Conducted by Raphael Kubelik, and with the Chilean tenor Ramon Vinay in the title role, this is an absolutely stunning performance. Iago was to have been sung by Tito Gobbi, the very informative notes (by Nicholas Payne) tell us. But the great Italian baritone didn’t show up by an “already adjusted deadline,” so the house soloist Otakar Kraus, who was due to sing the role later in the run, took his place. He was nervous, and might have been more so, Payne writes, had he known that Gobbi was in the opening night audience.
The excellence of this recording is due to its overall ensemble singing, and the magnificent orchestral playing. In addition, Vinay is outstanding as the entrapped and cornered Moor of Venice. The whole production is a notable tribute to the early days of Covent Garden as an opera house of international standing. It was established with a full-time company in 1945, and singing operas in their original languages only commenced some years later.
Madama Butterfly from 1957, conducted by Rudolf Kempe and with Victoria de los Angeles in the title role, was for me, less impressive. The celebrated Barcelona-born soprano is appropriately girl-like (Butterfly is, after all, meant to be 15), but I found it impossible to forget the 1980s recording from Giuseppe Sinopoli with Mirella Freni, Jose Carreras, Teresa Berganza and Juan Pons, surely still the finest available.
Names from previous reviews had a habit of reappearing this month. Back in May we reviewed a recording of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro from Russia [Taipei Times, May 29, 2014]. Now the same conductor, Teodor Currentzis, has come up with a Cosi Fan Tutte in similar style — crisp, beautifully recorded, and with piano rather than harpsichord continuo.
As we said in the earlier review, the commitment is extraordinary, with long rehearsal periods and an isolation from the normal pressures of recording, in this case far away in the Russian steppes. Currentzis is determined to do something new with these often-recorded operas, and what he comes up with is a modern immediacy that aspires to have its roots in original 18th century practice. Not everyone will like the result, but I found it sharp, piquant and engrossing.
Again, it was only two months ago that we reviewed a Mozart Requiem from the Dunedin Ensemble conducted by John Butt [Taipei Times, September 25, 2014]. Butt now appears again among the new releases, this time as solo harpsichordist in Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books 1 and 2, otherwise known as the 48 Preludes and Fugues.
The characteristic of this recording is once again a supreme incisiveness and clarity. Last week The Guardian commented of these CDs that “the assertiveness always outweighs the charm,” and called the harpsichord itself “muscular”. I have to agree with these remarks, while at the same time enjoying the performances very much. Butt is the recipient of many awards, and this is his first recording with the Linn label, after many years with Harmonia Mundi.
Finally, a great deal of promotion has been given to the CD of Anna Netrebko singing Strauss’s Four Last Songs, with Daniel Barenboim as conductor. Her voice has certainly attained a certain richness appropriate to these beautiful works, but it seems to me that her strongest point is her extreme dramatic intuitiveness, so that opera will always remain her forte. Even so, you might well consider Barenboim’s version of Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben (“A Hero’s Life”) with the Staatskapelle Berlin that occupies the bulk of the disc well worth the price in itself, and if so you can decide on Netrebko for yourself. Presto Classical, incidentally, claims to offer a special download version with even higher resolution than on the CD itself.
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