Czech Romantic Opera Anna Moffo, the Complete RCA Recital Albums
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act starting from ‘Stride le vampa’ would still be around for the later with tender strength by Bořek Rujan, a through the duet with Manrico. However, ‘Björling performance’ where he does strikingly virile-sounding baritone new to I think her finest singing is in the first not sound a great deal different. Finally, I me—one of the set’s major satisfactions scene of the following act. Captured and cannot resist mentioning the very first is hearing some unfamiliar singers threatened by the Count’s soldiers, her voice we hear on these discs—not proving themselves the equals of better- initial response is quiet and Moscona’s, but rather that of Milton known contemporaries. contemplative, rising to an exciting Cross, the inimitable presenter of Met Having said which, the prime climax as she defies her captors and broadcasts for more than 40 years. musical attractions here come from the warns of divine vengeance. As ever with Immortal Performances usual suspects. Maria Tauberová Nicola Moscona as Ferrando and there are extras. One can take for granted delivers Liduška’s brief lyric from Francesco Valentino as Di Luna were the fine sound restoration and the beautiful Dvořák’s rarely-heard Král a uhlíř both at relatively early stages in their Met booklet. There is also a musical bonus—a (‘King and Collier’) with immaculate careers and Trovatore represented their 1952 Björling broadcast containing ease and beauty of line. It is thrilling to debuts in Live Met broadcasts. Moscona several songs starting with a gorgeous ‘If I have the 15-minute fragment of would go on to give a total of more than could tell you’ and just one operatic Smetana’s last opera Viola (some way 700 performances with the company; aria—‘Nessun dorma’, a performance after Twelfth Night) inspirationally driven Valentino a mere 450! Both offer solid, comparable with his superb 1944 by Karel Ančerl. The opening storm at workmanlike performances. Moscona commercial recording. STANLEY HENIG sea has a queasy, chromatic vertigo presaging Sibelius’s Tempest prelude, and there’s a real sense of loss when the score breaks off suddenly, soon after Orsino’s entry. Smetana may have been Czech Romantic Opera ■ Karel Bendl, drawn by Jan Vilímek Extracts from Viola (Smetana), Král a uhlíř (Dvořák), Hedy (Fibich), Dědúv odkaz officially mad by the time he tackled it, (Novák), Starý ženich and Lejla aneb Obležení Granady (Bendl), Zmařená Svatbal but there’s method in his music. Judging at the time, disconcerting the critics and (Šebor), Svatojanské proudy (Rozkošný), Zakletý princ (Hřimalý), Veselé námluvy from its noble tenor aria and steamy love audiences with its neo-Romantic (Malát), Na starém bělidle (Kovařovic), U božích muk (Suda), Dubrovský duet, Fibich’s forgotten fourth opera populism, flecked with modernist (Nápravnik). With Ludmila Červinková, Libuše Domanínská, Ludmila Hanzalíková, Hedy (1895, drawn from an episode in harmonic and instrumental touches. A Jaroslava Procházková, Milada Šubrtová, Maria Tauberová, Drahomira Tikhalová, Byron’s Don Juan) may be more than a wild choral dance and duet in astringent Jaroslava Vymazalová, Věra Krilová, Beno Blachut, Jaroslav Gleich, Antonín Votava, mere staging post on the way to his Slovak style are capped by a dreamy, Ivo Židek, Antonín Zlesák, Karel Kalaš, Bořek Rujan, Jan Soumar, Theodor Šrubař, admired Šárka: certainly Blachut and soft-centred song for a village girl (the Eduard Haken, Prague Radio Chorus and Orchestra, c. Karel Ančerl, Antonín Devátý, Jaroslava Procházková deliver the moving Šubrtová again) which had me František Dyk, Alois Klíma, Jiří Pinkas. RadioServis CR0782-2 (two CDs) hyper-sensual duet as if their lives longing to hear more of this strange, depended on it. neglected score. Prague Radio’s transfers These Prague Radio performances, Taking one for all, Karel Bendl The chief revelation for me comes are very good; and though the booklet broadcast between 1949 and 1959, make (1838–97) was in his time Bohemia’s with the 17-minute selection from summarizes Vlasta Reittererová’s fascinating and delightful listening. most popular composer after Smetana Vítězslav Novák’s last opera, Dědúv comprehensive notes in German only, Fascinating because they offer some and Dvořák, and on the evidence of the odkaz (‘Grandfather’s Legacy’, 1926). this remains an important collection of improbable rarities from beneath the half-hour extracted from his 1868 This mixture of twisted fairy tale and rare operatic music which provides waterline of the Romantic repertoire. tragedy Lejla or The Siege of Granada artistic allegory didn’t go down too well lasting pleasures. CHRISTOPHER WEBBER Delightful thanks to some stellar Czech (based like Wagner’s Rienzi on a Bulwer- singers, well able to make silk purses Lytton drama) he deserves to be better from … though to call anything on this remembered. Bendl’s gently exotic well-packed double album a sow’s ear Romanticism and feel for theatre are Anna Moffo, The Complete RCA Recital Albums would be unkind, when the composers – relished by Beno Blachut and Drahomira even the most obscure– show themselves Tikalová in an ardent love duet, and by ‘Anna Moffo’, ‘The Dream Duet’, ‘A Verdi Celebration’, ‘A Portrait of Manon’, ‘Die at the very least capable of weaving the earth-elemental bass Eduard Haken Fledermaus (highlights)’, ‘One Night of Love’, ‘Moffo and Stokowski’, ‘Songs of grateful melodic lines. Derivative many in a Spanish patriotic song. Last and best Debussy’, ‘Heroines from Great French Operas’, ‘Selected Arias from RCA Opera of their operas may be, but there’s no comes a chain of mellifluous solos and Recordings’, ‘Great Love Duets from Opera’. RCA/Sony Classics, 888/5032232 (12 CDs) one in this varied anthology of peasant duets showcasing Milada Šubrtová, that comedies, fairy tales and historical most touching of Czech lyric sopranos, All gifted sopranos should regard Anna televised Madama Butterfly (1955), dramas who doesn’t have something as a dancing girl in love with the doomed Moffo’s career path as a cautionary tale. the young American singer— to say. Moorish King Boabdil. He is portrayed After becoming a star overnight in RAI’s ravishingly beautiful in both voice and 648 Opera, May 2016 Opera, May 2016 649 ‘A Verdi Celebration’ (1962) shows the excerpts are uncomfortably fashioned ‘desert island’ choice in Moffo’s Moffo faring best with I vespri siciliani from material meant for a single voice. discography, her 1964 programme led by and Elena’s siciliana (the aria is cut by Moffo has the edge over her tenor partner Stokowski, finds the soprano unfailingly half, alas). The other excerpts are in terms of vocal velvet, but there’s an exquisite in Canteloube, Rachmaninov similarly well vocalized and admirably obvious rapport here and at certain and Villa-Lobos. phrased, but repeatedly Moffo’s vocal moments (‘Ah, sweet mystery of life’, In a set commemorating the tenth weight proves insufficient. Another disc for example) the magic takes hold. On anniversary of Moffo’s death, Jürgen pulls arias from complete opera her own in the solo album ‘One Night of Kesting’s booklet essay, while recordings (1960-6). Vocally these Love’ Moffo carries all before her, informative regarding career details, heroines are all memorable, wiry upper- whether in the music of Rodgers, seems rather ungenerous in evaluating register moments in the Lucia excerpts Kreisler or Herbert. the soprano’s artistry. The original notes notwithstanding. The 1971 Debussy recital (with Jean adorn the back of each sleeve, but one In the ‘Portrait of Manon’ album, Casadesus exceptionally stylish at the needs a strong magnifying glass to read Massenet’s convent-bound girl sounds piano) is surprisingly persuasive, and the them. ROGER PINES too knowing and womanly, but the ‘Adieu’ proves affecting, the Gavotte delicious, and ‘N’est-ce plus ma main?’ unforgettably seductive. Moffo also Opera on DVD and Blu-ray sparkles as Aurore in an ariette from Le Portrait de Manon. The Manon Lescaut excerpts find her decidedly lacking in ‘oomph’, although tonally lovely. Her Turandot, Puccini opposite numbers are Giuseppe di Mlada Khudoley (Turandot), Guanqun Yu (Liù), Riccardo Massi (Calaf), Manuel von Stefano (Massenet), croony in pp but Senden (Altoum), Taylan Reinhard (Pang), Cosmin Ifrim (Pong), Andrè Schuen generally persuasive, and Flaviano Labò (Ping), Yasushi Hirano (Mandarin), Michail Ryssov (Timur), Prague Philharmonic (Puccini), in every way superb. ■ Anna Moffo in 1961 Choir, Bregenz Festival Choir, Wiener Symphoniker, c. Paolo Carignani, p. Marco A disc of love duets gathered from Arturo Marelli, d. Marelli and Constance Hoffman, video director Felix Breisach. person—embarked on a life of constant Moffo’s opera sets include seven tenor Unitel Classica C major DVD 731408/Blu-ray 731504 (125 mins) new roles in major international houses, partners. The soprano sings gloriously plus recordings, television and film throughout. Tucker, Bergonzi and Kraus The Seebühne at Bregenz is necessarily a however, by the Pierrot-like figure of an appearances, and all the glamorous are all predictably satisfying, likewise place for spectacle, and Puccini’s opera invented character called the White accoutrements of a jetsetting diva. Her Cesare Valletti’s Pinkerton (has any pair certainly demands that—among other Clown (played by Paul Bélanger), who technique was hard-pressed to cope, and ever recorded the Butterflyduet more things. Filmed in July 2015, Marco mimes his way obtrusively through scene from the late 1960s her instrument began affectingly?) and the little-remembered Arturo Marelli’s self-designed production after scene. Is he a reference to Pierrot to unravel, severely compromising the Daniele Barioni, Ruggero to Moffo’s throws a huge variety of standard, lunaire? Schoenberg is mentioned in a second half of her career. matchlessly alluring Magda in La tourism-familiar Chinese imagery at the booklet note as one of the composers Moffo was closely associated with rondine.