TITO GOBBI: A Tribute Tito Gobbi (bar); Various artists IMMORTAL PERFORMANCES 1145-4, mono (4 CDs: 295:11) VERDI Nabucco (Bruno Bartoletti, cond; Tito Gobbi (Nabucco); Danica Mastilovic (Abigaille); Anna Maria Rota (Fenena); Alfonso La Morena (Ismaele); Boris Christoff (Zaccaria); Chicago Lyric Op Ch & O. Live: Lyric Op, Chicago 10/4/1963) PUCCINI Il Tabarro (John Pritchard, cond; Marie Collier (Giorgetta); Charles Craig (Luigi); Tito Gobbi (Michele); Royal Op O. Live: Royal Op, Covent Garden, London 4/23/1965) PUCCINI Gianni Schicchi John Pritchard, cond; Tito Gobbi (Schicchi); Elizabeth Vaughan (Lauretta); John Wakefield (Rinuccio); Royal Op O. Live: Royal Op, Covent Garden, London 4/23/1965) k Tito Gobbi sings scenes from Falstaff, Otello, and Tosca. Three interviews with Gobbi Review by Henry Fogel FANFARE March / April 2021 The 4-CD set serves as a wonderful tribute to the great Italian baritone Tito Gobbi (1913– 1984). Gobbi was much more than an opera singer; he was a complete artist with vocal and physical acting skills far beyond what is found in most singers. His voice was not a conventionally beautiful one. It had little of the tonal richness heard, for example, from Leonard Warren or Robert Merrill. What Gobbi did have, though, was a keen imagination and intelligence, allowing him to penetrate the characters he portrayed in great dramatic depth. He was a favored partner of Maria Callas because she was one of the few who shared his ability. The main attraction here is a Chicago Lyric Opera performance of Verdi’s Nabucco from 1963. William Russell’s excellent detailed program notes place Gobbi in a lineage that may have begun with Chaliapin, of singers for whom the texts were as important as the notes. Gobbi made a very successful commercial recording of Nabucco for Decca in 1965. If I had to recommend a single version of Nabucco to a general collector, it would be this one, because of its splendid stereo sound and fine performances from Elena Suliotis and conductor Lamberto Gardelli. But for anyone who has a serious interest in Verdi or Italian operatic performance tradition, there is no substitute for hearing Gobbi in live. Immortal Performances has done its usual excellent job in sonic restoration, and the original was not bad to start with. However, there was a gap in the original broadcast of just over two minutes, which producer Richard Caniell has filled in from the Decca set. The joins are seamless. More than any other baritone I have heard in this opera, Gobbi captures the full scope of the title character. At times Nabucco is a cold and powerful ruler, at times an insane figure who thinks he is God, and at other times a humbled and shattered man pleading to God for 1 forgiveness. Gobbi manages to integrate these contrasts into a whole character rather than treating them as individual moments that fail to tie together. Through careful, subtle shading of vocal color and the use of emphasis and inflection, we hear the undercurrent of weakness at Nabucco’s most powerful utterances, and the shreds of remaining strength when he’s at his weakest. Gobbi’s interactions with Abigaille are deeply moving. The role of Abigaille is fiendishly difficult, requiring coloratura agility alongside the power of a dramatic soprano. No one has come closer to encompassing these demands than the young Callas in a dim-sounding 1949 performance from Naples. Suliotis did very well on the 1965 Decca recording, though that and other unwise stresses that she put on her voice made for a stunningly short career. In this performance Danica Mastilovic, a Yugoslav soprano making her U.S. debut in these Nabucco performances in Chicago, has the required power and dramatic presence, but I find the voice a bit too hard-toned. She is, however, very much into the role. Anna Maria Rota and Alfonso La Morena are effective as Fenena and Ismaele; as the High Priest Zaccaria, Boris Christoff is towering. His imposing, rock-solid basso and strong vocal presence help to give this role the importance it needs for a staging of Nabucco to be successful. Bruno Bartoletti conducts with a strong feeling for the idiom and natural pacing, though I do not find him as dramatically incisive as Lamberto Gardelli on the Decca recording. Overall, this Nabucco is a release of great importance. Given Gobbi’s immense stature in the middle of the 20th century, we don’t have very many examples of his work in live performances. To have this one, and in good monaural sound, is treasurable. As a bonus Immortal Performances has added two operas from Puccini’s Il trittico from a Covent Garden performance on April 23, 1965 (the evening also included Suor Angelica, but of course it has no male roles). The role of Michele in Il tabarro is not very big, but it is central to the murderous melodrama, and it contains some of Puccini’s finest writing for ae baritone aside from Scarpia. Gobbi’s portrayal of the inflamed, heartbroken husband whose young wife has fallen out of love with him is achingly powerful. As with his Nabucco, he is not satisfied to bluster about faithlessness and swear revenge. In Michele’s aria “Nulla! Silenzio!” we hear the character’s anguish poignantly expressed, again through emphasis on the text and the shading of vocal color. The way Gobbi drains the tone from his voice on the first two words demonstrates his mastery. Marie Collier’s Giorgetta is strongly sung and acted, although she slightly flats the C she throws in during the duet with Luigi. As Luigi, Charles Craig’s strong tenor encompasses all of Puccini’s demands, but I have never found it a particularly attractive voice or him a particularly imaginative artist. Still, the overall impact of this performance is thrilling. Gobbi can turn on a dime from portraying the tragic, brutish Michele to mastering Puccini’s sole comedy, Gianni Schicchi. I suspect that with so much of his career focused on portraying nefarious characters (Scarpia, Nabucco, Macbeth, Carlo in La forza), the opportunity to have fun with the sly, clever Schicchi must have been welcome; Gobbi turned it into a signature role. For anyone who got to know his singing through Scarpia, another signature role, Gobbi’s comic gifts, the droll timing, and high spirits came as a surprise. Those gifts are considerably brighter here than on his EMI studio recording, which is conducted without spirit by Gabriele Santini. John Pritchard is far sharper, and the entire cast sound like they are having a ball. 2 Other bonus tracks are of note. The “Credo” from Verdi’s Otello comes from a Met performance from 1967 sizzlingly conducted by Zubin Mehta, and the excerpts from Falstaff are from Gobbi’s early days, in 1941, when he was singing Ford to Mariano Stabile’s Falstaff. It is a treasurable memento of a part Gobbi was to abandon when he moved to the title role. Add to the music three interviews in English with the singer conducted by interviewers who actually knew something about opera and who ask intelligent questions, drawing out of Gobbi some very thoughtful responses, and you have an exceptional package. As is always the case with Immortal Performances, the booklet is its own treasure, with terrific pictures supplementing the commentary. For anyone who enjoys the artistry of Tito Gobbi, this set is essential, and as further incentive, the four discs are sold for the price of three. Five stars: A superb tribute to Tito Gobbi Review by Ken Meltzer FANFARE March / April 2021 “Tito Gobbi: A Tribute” from Immortal Performances (IP) celebrates one of the finest singing actors of 20th century opera. Gobbi (1913-1984) is well known for the series of EMI recordings he made with soprano Maria Callas, most notably the iconic La Scala Tosca, with tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano and conductor Victor de Sabata. Gobbi’s long and distinguished career encompassed staged and recorded opera, and several successful movies as well. The IP set includes a trio of marvelous English-language interviews with Gobbi. It’s fascinating to hear Gobbi talk about his preparation for undertaking a role. First, Gobbi read everything about his character he could find. If the opera was based upon a literary work, Gobbi read that. In the case of Verdi’s Falstaff, for example, Gobbi read Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor and the Henry IV plays; first in Italian translation, and then in English (with an Italian-English dictionary close at hand). Gobbi proceeded to the opera’s libretto, and finally, the score. And so for Tito Gobbi, the music and its interpreter were always at the service of the text’s dramatic potential and meaning. Some other baritones may have possessed voices with a more beautiful timbre, purer legato, and easier top notes. But for me, no Italian baritone ever embodied his characters as fully and convincingly as Tito Gobbi. And I must emphasize that Gobbi’s voice was impressive in its own right—rich, masculine, and capable of an infinite variety of colors. And few singers delivered text with the pungency and meaning invested by Gobbi. The IP set includes three live performances of operas that Gobbi also recorded commercially. All of those commercial recordings are worth hearing. But the three live performances on the IP set are cast from strength and marvelously rendered. At heart, Gobbi was a stage actor, at his best and most intense when performing in the theater. In that sense, the live performances of Verdi’s Nabucco, and Puccini’s Il tabarro and Gianni Schicchi, have a thrilling immediacy that exceed the parallel studio efforts.