Search - Giuseppe Verdi, Carlo Sabajno, Salvatore Baccaloni :: Verdi: Rigoletto

Excellent historic performance from 1927-28

L. E. Cantrell | Vancouver, British Columbia Canada | 06/03/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Source: HMV studio recording made in Milan in November and December 1927 and February 1928. This recording is one of the earliest entries in the great race between the Italian branch of HMV (La voce del padrone) and Columbia to issue the basic Italian operatic repertory. Both companies used what amounted to La Scala casts. This CD re-issue was based on 78 rpm records from the University of Toronto Recordings Archive.



Sound: About 1926, the recording industry entered into one of its several technological revolutions. This particular revolution involved what was called the electrical process. For the first time microphones were used, eliminating the need to shout into oversized metal horns.



Electrical recording was sensitive to a far wider range of tones than the old mechanical systems and the spin doctors of the time (just like their successors in following generations) proudly claimed that the new process offered the complete musical experience, indistinguishable from an expensive seat in the theater. And, in truth, the sound wasn't bad. Top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art recordings of the period, such as English HMV's Black Seal recordings of Gilbert and Sullivan, can be remastered with modern equipment to sound very like mono recordings made just before the high-fidelity revolution in the early 1950s.



Unfortunately, La voce del padrone recordings of the time were neither state-of-the-art nor top-of-the-line. The booklet accompanying this set has this to say: "The chief deficiency of the 1927 HMV set is its rather poor sound quality, a result of the inferior shellac on which the original 78s were pressed. The voices generally reproduce quite clearly, but crucial instrumental lines are often barely discernible through the surface crackle and hiss. Enough orchestral detail emerges, however, to allow us to appreciate the subtlety and variety of Sabajno's conducting." I think the booklet overstates the negative. The voices sound fine and the orchestra is muffled by current standards but the crackle and hiss are not as bad as implied.



Cast: Rigoletto - Luigi Piazza; Gilda - Lina Pagliughi; Duke of Mantua - Tino Folgar; Sparafucile - Salvatore Baccaloni; Maddalena - Vera De Cristoff; Monterone/Marullo - Aristide Barrachi; Borsa - Giuseppe Nessi; Count Ceprano - Giuseppe Menni; Countessa Ceprano - Linda Brambilla. Conductor: Carlo Sabajno with the Orchestia and Chorus of La Scala, Milan.



Format: Disk One - Act I, Scene 1, tracks 1-6; Act I, Scene 2, tracks 7-15; 53:32. Disk Two - Act II, tracks 1-8; Act III, tracks 9-17; 57:37.



Documentation: No libretto. No summary of the plot (but, of course, it may be assumed that anybody willing to lay down hard cash for a 1927 recording of "Rigoletto" probably has a pretty good idea of what the opera is about.) A too-brief but nevertheless interesting essay by John Santoro touching on the history of this recording and that of its 1930 Columbia rival, the musical qualities of the performance and thumbnail sketches of some principal singers. Two photographs of Lina Pagliughi: In one, the twenty year-old singer looks chubby but attractive; in the other, a somewhat older looking Pagliughi is decked out in full diva rig as Lucia (the extra hefty version.) There is also a photograph of tenor Tino Folgar in tuxedo, pose and facial expression of a James Bond villain--Mr. Bad News, himself.



This historic recording offers an excellent, idiomatic and authentic performance of "Rigoletto," although one that is in a style noticeably different from that to which we have become accustomed.



Luigi Piazza was first and foremost a singing Rigoletto. His performance offers occasional touches of real vocal elegance--not something to be said of most of his successors.



The twenty year-old Lina Pagliughi had made her debut just two months before this recording. She is excellent as Gilda, singing in an absolutely straightforward manner and being perfectly convincing as a young, too innocent girl. In "Caro nome" her voice sounds a bit thin on the top notes. She does not have this fault on later recordings and I am not sure whether the thinness is an artifact of early electrical technology or of her early vocal training. The fault, if it is a fault, is not consistent throughout the recording.



Tino Folgar was a very tenorish tenor, and a very elegant one, at that. His light, youthful sound is quite different from that of heavier voiced, hard-charging successors in the role. He is perfectly convincing, though, as a young, self-centered duke who is utterly and heartlessly indifferent to the pain of others. His weakest moment is in "Questa o quella" at the very beginning of the opera. It is nicely sung but oddly off-center, dramatically speaking. I think that it was recorded separately as a single 78 rpm "side." Being separated from the flow of the drama, I believe Folgar instinctively fell back into concert mode and sang accordingly. He is on-point throughout the rest of the opera.



Salvatore Baccaloni started out conventionally enough in the bass-baritone repertory, but Arturo Toscanini convinced him to specialize in the buffo parts. To my mind, he remains the best Leporello on records. I saw him just once, at the very end of his career, old and overweight, doing Sergeant Sulpice in "The Daughter of the Regiment." He stole the show right out from under the booted feet of Joan Sutherland. In 1927 he was still doing the dark parts and here he is excellent as Sparafucile, that grim fellow who introduces himself to the sour little Jester as a man with a sword.



Carlo Sabajno is a conductor who is frustratingly elusive. This is what I know--or at least deduce of him: His active career in music seems to have stretched from 1902 to 1940. In 1905 he took employment with the Gramophone Company, serving as conductor of orchestral accompaniments to operatic recordings during a time when virtually all singers worked only with a pianist. Before long Sabajno found himself head of HMV's operations in Milan. He held onto that position with its close proximity to La Scala, then regarded as the very hub of Italian opera, to the end. In addition to conducting, he was the man who signed up cast members and oversaw their feed and care. Details are hazy, but he seems to have been quite famous for the number and variety of his romantic entanglements. His chief claim to modern fame, if Google is to be believed, is that the producers of the Streep film "Lorenzo's Oil" chose to insert two of his ancient operatic recordings into the soundtrack. And there is just one more thing--he was a superb conductor of Italian opera. I have no qualms at all about stating that any opera he conducted is worth a listen.



To anyone with a taste for historical recordings, this is a terrific "Rigoletto"--five dust-covered stars."