Search - Giuseppe Verdi, Oliviero de Fabritiis, Colon Theater Orchestra (Buenos Aires) :: Verdi: Don Carlo

Heavyweights

TODD KAY | 09/23/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In many respects, this is typical of DON CARLO performances of the period (1967) featuring world-class singers. Verdi's four-act revision of 1884 is given in Italian, with some cuts widely in practice at the time (a nasty internal one in the first duet for tenor and soprano, and several in their last one; only a single verse of Elisabetta's farewell to the Countess of Aremberg; extensive snipping and grafting of the instrumental midsection of the auto-da-fé scene, et cetera). There are no textual surprises; an otherwise useful review on a popular classical review site is in curious error with its claim that the costume-exchanging scene for Eboli and Elisabetta is performed. (Also in error is Amazon's product description, which at the time of this writing suggests that the tenor Franco Corelli plays some part in this recording.)



What sets this apart from many similar performances is the scarcity of "usual suspects" in the cast. Only the mezzo, who had cut a commercial Eboli a few years before she hit her stride, and can be heard in the part on half a dozen or more live recordings from her prime, qualifies that way. No one else among this interesting, Anglo-leaning stack of singers (English tenor, Welsh soprano, French baritone, Italian mezzo, American and German-American basses) recorded his or her role on a commercial CARLO. As such, this has documentary interest, especially for fans of one or more of the singers, all of whom are caught in solid shape. One gets the impression of a humid, barnstorming CARLO rather than a fully realized "production" of the type preserved on the Giulini/ROH '58 set. The singing is emphatic, conventional in terms of characterization, and not especially subtle, but it is unsubtle in a restrained, modern way -- this is a tasteful, intelligent bunch, even when they are playing to the back row. A case in point is Gabriel Bacquier's vocalism of Rodrigo's death aria: broadly theatrical, and apt to be recognized as a death scene even by someone who does not know a word of Italian, but without recourse to lachrymose hamming or literal grunts.



(Speaking of the back row, it would seem to have been well pleased by what was coming from the stage. The Buenos Aires audience is an exceptionally demonstrative and enthusiastic one. No exaggeration: their ovations for the Veil Song and "Non pianger" are of the volume and duration one usually hears only at the end of an opera.)



Charles Craig's dramatic tenor inevitably has a more "whitebread" sound than we usually hear in the title role, and his is an unusually stable-sounding Carlo; the neurosis and anguish do not come through as vividly as in the portrayals of Vickers, Bergonzi, Domingo, and Carreras. But his healthy, musical, and attractive singing is persuasive on its own terms. One has to listen attentively to hear any warning blinkers of the unevenness that would creep into Gwyneth Jones's singing in the not-too-distant future, and it is always a pleasure to hear a legitimate dramatic soprano in the role of Elisabetta, which has been sung so often by ambitious lyric types (Freni, Cotrubas, Ricciarelli) that we have come to think of it as their province. Bacquier is in something approaching best form. He does not have the technical set of a true Verdi baritone (the top is effortful), but he hangs in well enough and shapes a good line. Fiorenza Cossotto was a dream of an Eboli, and while I have heard her sing the part as well as she does here, I have never heard her do better. This is high praise. In 1967 she had it all: the bel canto flexibility to toss off her first solo fluently, the ruby-colored low notes and reliable extension for the garden scene and "O don fatale," the sensuality to suggest a beautiful seductress, the heft and incisiveness to make her a formidable antagonist, and the enveloping warmth of tone without which the prayerful middle of "O don fatale" simply will not come off. Jerome Hines's Filippo begins promisingly, with a chilling dismissal of the Countess, and "Restate!" mostly goes well, but his palette of colors is restricted; some vague orchestral playing seems to pull him off center in the aria; he resorts too often to barking or bending the last note of a phrase; and the duet with William Wildermann's Grand Inquisitor is not well realized. The parties involved play the scene for little more than voltage and volume; and when there is no feeling for sophisticated rhetorical thrust-and-parry, the thematic underpinning of the confrontation is lost, and we just have two ill-tempered, low-voiced men engaged in a shouting match.



Conductor Oliviero de Fabritiis heads a leisurely performance. Basic speeds are not particularly slow, but he gives the singers considerable leeway with which to phrase (Cossotto, for example, is allowed to make meals of the slow parts of both of her solos; de Fabritiis more or less gets out of the way). His own phrasing is attuned to the drama, and there are sprinklings of individuality. Some conductor may have been able to make the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Colon sound like a first-class ensemble; de Fabritiis was not that conductor. In the best moments, he gets them to balance precariously on a tightrope of competence; too often they tumble off. Much of the auto-da-fé suffers from a range of perspectives on where the beat is; the simple playout to the garden scene, with its vigorous reprise of the tenor/baritone "friendship" motif, is ill-coordinated and scrappy; the solo cello atop Act III makes a sickly display; and this is one of those orchestrally unfortunate performances in which whatever is the most out of tune seems to be the loudest. Enthusiasm puts in a double shift while precision languishes in its sickbed. The recorded sound is excellent, except for a few passages with some sort of bleed-through; through headphones in quiet or silent bits, other music can be faintly heard, as if another operatic performance is taking place in a theater next door.



Generous selections from a better-played Covent Garden AIDA (1968), with Gwyneth Jones and Jon Vickers under the baton of Edward Downes, fill out the third disc in a luxurious fashion. "Ritorna vincitor," most of the Nile Scene and all of the Tomb Scene are included."