Verdi's Audacious Corsair Philips Offers an Exemplary Premiere Recording of Il Corsaro, One of the Most Adventurous of Verdi's Pre-Rigoletto Operas

Verdi's Audacious Corsair Philips offers an exemplary premiere recording of Il Corsaro, one of the most adventurous of Verdi's pre-Rigoletto operas. by Andrew Porter WITH THIS, the latest sortie in Philips' "Verdi cru- missed II Corsaro as "another piece of hackwork." sade," the very high standard of 1 Masnadieri (6703 But hackwork it's not, even though the circum- 064, December 1975) is maintained-by a first-rate stances of its composition may suggest it. cast and first-rate conductor (again Lamberto Gar- 11 Corsaro, based on Byron's The Corsair: a tale, delli), giving an exciting performance recorded in im- was planned before Macbeth and I Masnadieri but peccable focus. brought to completion only after them, and after Je- This is another set that should cause some revi- rusalem. Verdi dispatched it, from Paris, to dis- sions of accepted opinion. Not that I needed any con- charge a contract with the publisher Lucca that irked vincing that II Corsaro is one of the most arresting of him. He did not bring it to the stage himself, and so Verdi's early operas. That became obvious at its first the score never received those final touches that twentieth-century staging, at St. Pancras in 1966, Verdi was wont to continue making as far as, and with Pauline Tinsley as its heroine. (In 1963 there had even after, the dress rehearsal. been an ill-starred concert version in the Doge's Pal- The plot is awkward. In Act I, Conrad the corsair ace in Venice; BBC and then Fenice productions fol- (I'll keep Byron's form of the names) leaves his be- lowed in 1971.) loved Medora and sails off to attack the Muslims. In "Most arresting," however, does not mean most Act II, disguised as a dervish, he penetrates the Pasha successful. Until the St. Pancras production opened Seyd's court but throws away his chance of conquest our ears, II Corsero had always had a pretty terrible when he leads his men off to rescue the women of the press. Francis Toye declared that, "with the excep- harem, which has caught fire. Returning with Seyd's tion of Alzira, this is the worst opera ever written favorite, Gulnare (rhymes, in Byron, with "stare"), in by the composer." (One could, of course, agree and his arms, he is captured; so are his gallant men, sim- still value it very highly; in any case, who is prepared ilarly cumbered with odalisques. In the first scene of to say which is Verdi's "worst" opera? Alzira is cer- Act III, Gulnare, who has fallen in love with Conrad, tainly not negligible.) Frank Walker, in Grove, dis- stabs the sleeping Seyd, and they escape together.

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