Decca's Compact Opera Collection has just entered its second phase. It began with ten titles last April, and has now added a further ten. What exactly does it have to offer?
Its distinctive feature is that the operas carry the words "enhanced CD." The first disc of each opera contains the libretto in four languages -- English, German, French and Italian -- accessible by computer.
Most recording companies try to up-date their old stock by marketing it as having freshened-up sound quality. Decca, by contrast, are turning the public's attention to the text.
The graphics of the specimen examined (Wagner's Lohengrin) were identical to what you would see in an old-fashioned booklet, though its easy magnification on screen is a definite plus. Even so, some listeners might consider the booklet format more convenient. It's bad luck, for example, if you want to listen to the opera on a personal stereo anywhere away from your computer.
And because the complete text and the first part of each opera are both contained on the first CD of what is usually a three-CD set, if you want to hear that first CD on your home stereo system it's necessary to copy the text onto your hard drive first.
So, what recordings have benefited from this treatment? Decca have always been a leading opera label, and it's not surprising that some very fine performances are among the versions here on offer. It would be hard to do justice to all 20, but many nevertheless demand special mention.
One of the most distinguished is also one of the more recent titles (none of these recordings, it should be pointed out, is new). This is Strauss' Elektra, recorded live in Boston in 1988 with Hildegard Behrens in the title role and Christa Ludwig as Klytemnestra. This is a bargain -- if, that is, you can tolerate the manic and cacophonous nature of much of the music. It's a brilliant work, nonetheless. Seiji Ozawa conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Also outstanding is Leinsdorf's version of Die Walkure with Jon Vickers as Siegmund and Birgit Nilsson as Brunnhilde, both incomparable. George London is less stellar as Wotan, but is nevertheless entirely satisfactory. Though there are, of course, many rival versions, this one nonetheless never ceases to give intense pleasure at almost all points. The excited apprehension of the valkyries immediately after the famous "ride," as a furious Wotan approaches, flying from mountain top to mountain top, is totally intoxicating. It's good to know this fine rendering is still holding its own into the 21st century.
Then there's Lohengrin, recorded live at Bayreuth in 1962 with Jess Thomas in the title role and Anja Silja as Elsa. There are times at the beginning when it sounds as if scene shifters wearing heavy boots are still at work and an early form of SARS has struck the audience. Nevertheless the rendering under the renowned Wolfgang Sawallish is atmospheric, and Anja Silja manages to be generally tender yet wildly fierce when necessary.
But it's Jess Thomas's ringing rendition of his exceptionally lyrical role that constitutes the strongest recommendation for this historic recording.
This was the opera especially loved by Thomas Mann who recalled that tears came to his eyes whenever he heard its opening bars, transporting the listener as they do back to a magical, mythical Medieval world.
A notable jewel from the list is Sinopoli's Rigoletto, with Edita Gruberova an exceptionally fine Gilda and Renato Bruson an unusually somber and thoughtful hunchback.
What else? Well, there's Joan Sutherland's first recording of Norma, with the excellent but less renowned Marilyn Horne as Adalgisa, and John Alexander and Richard Cross as the male leads.
Also with Sutherland is La Traviata, again not her only recording of this work. This version is with Carlo Bergonzi as Alfredo and Robert Merrill as his father Germont. Sutherland also appears in the series in Gounod's Faust, albeit no one's favorite opera, with Corelli and Ghiaurov.
There's plenty more. There's a Don Giovanni, for instance, with Bernd Weikl -- more usually associated with Wagner -- as the Don, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Solti, and a Le Nozze di Figaro with Van Dam, Hendricks, Raimondi, Popp and Baltsa under Marriner, both items enthusiasts will be happy to add to their collections, though neither will be many people's first choice for the works in question.
Puccini is of course not to be excluded from a series like this. The well-worn Madama Butterfly with Tebaldi and Bergonzi is, despite its age, considered by many opera professionals to be incomparable, and there's also the same two soloists' version of La Boheme. Each has Tullio Serafin conducting Rome's Orchestra and Choir of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, and so ensuring an authentic Italian approach.
Montserrat Caballe graces the series with her presence in the form of her Lucia di Lammermoor and Ballo in Maschera, both with Jose Carreras. There is in addition the very distinguished Hansel and Gretel with Fassbaender, Popp, Berry, Gruberova and the Vienna Philharmonic under Solti, long the market leader for this one-of-a-kind work.
Also re-issued here are Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci from Pretre and the forces of La Scala, Milan (with Domingo, Bruson, Obraztsova, Stratas).
The former, however, has always seemed somewhat dull in sound to me, despite -- or perhaps because of -- being the original soundtrack of Zeffirelli's film of the opera. And Elena Obraztsova, although an incomparable singer of the songs of her compatriot Tchaikovsky, will for some sound slightly too full-voiced for the newly-married young Santuzza.
All in all, this is a fine collection, impressively packaged. Decca's claim that theirs is a newly slim way of presenting opera recordings sounds a strange note. The Karajan Ring operas, for instance, are slimmer, even though they include the complete texts in booklet form.
Full details of the series can be found at www.deccaclassics.com/compactoperacollection.
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