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Singers: Recordings, Films and Concerts
The
privilege of taking part in performances
in the opera house, recording and film
studio and at concerts with superb artists
– legendary singers from 1943 until
1979.
In
previous chapters I have described the
pleasure we had when playing in orchestras
with wonderful solo violinists, cellists,
pianists, other instrumental soloists
and with our colleagues in the orchestra.
It was not until I came to write about
singers that I realised just how many
wonderful artists I had been privileged
to take part in performances with between
1943 until 1979. Before that time I
had to rely like everyone else on the
recordings made in the first half of
the 20th century. It is fortunate
that though recording techniques were
primitive by today’s standards the legacy
of recordings made by many legendary
singers at that time is still available.
In contrast to the instrumental and
orchestral recordings made during the
same period the voices remain uncorrupted
even by the crackle and hiss that even
the most sophisticated techniques cannot
entirely remove.
Unless
one is in a full-time opera orchestra
the number of opportunities one gets
to play opera will usually be quite
limited. I was fortunate that the standard
of the performances at Glyndebourne
during the years about which I have
written was so extraordinarily high.
In fact I have never really enjoyed
playing in the orchestra pit, with the
exception of my time at Glyndebourne
where other factors outweighed my prejudice.
However some musicians prefer to play
for opera and I know that a number of
my colleagues in the Royal Opera House
Orchestra would not exchange their job
for one in a symphony orchestra.
Though
we only played two operas in the theatre
with Beecham, Ariadne auf Naxos
at the Edinburgh Festival and Irmelin
in Oxford, about which I have already
written, we broadcast and recorded
A Village Romeo and Juliet by Delius,
broadcast Richard Strauss’s Elektra
and The Trojans by Berlioz,
recorded Gounod’s Faust and played
for the filmed version of The Tales
of Hoffman by Offenbach,
under Sir Thomas’s direction.
When
we broadcast Elektra from the
BBC studios at Maida Vale with a very
large orchestra plus chorus and soloists
it felt very cramped acoustically and
though there was an excellent cast that
included Erna Schlüter, Ljuba Welitsch
and Paul Schoeffler, there was not really
enough time allowed for rehearsal. On
the other hand Faust and The
Tales of Hoffman were both wonderful.
We recorded Faust at the EMI
Abbey Road studios with an all-French
cast. I remember a most terrific Mephistopheles,
Roger Rico – not in costume but quite
scary. Beecham took immense trouble
over this recording and exceeded the
number of sessions EMI had agreed. He
decided to ask the orchestra to do four
more sessions on the understanding that
we would be paid when the royalties
came in. Of course the orchestra agreed,
though I can’t recall whether we ever
received any further payment.
Best
of all was the 1949 film The Tales
of Hoffmann, over which Beecham
again took an immense amount of time
and trouble. Michael Powell and Emeric
Pressburger, the film directors and
producers worked very closely with Beecham
on every aspect of the film. All the
music was recorded before the film was
shot and the roles on screen were danced
by a team of celebrated ballet dancers.
Most of the female roles were danced
by Moira Shearer and Robert Helpmann
took the part of Lindorf, Coppelius,
Dapertutto and Dr Miracle. Robert Rounseville
both sang and acted the part of Hoffman.
In the
past there were more performances of
oratorios and other religious music
at concerts, in churches and the concert
halls than there are now. In the 1940s
and 50s Handel’s Messiah and
Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius were
regular items each year and provided
opportunities for some of the best British
singers. Two regulars were Elsie Suddaby,
known
as ‘The Girl with the Delicate Air’,
who was a fine soprano, and Heddle Nash,
a tenor with a lovely Italianate voice.
He was a most wonderful Gerontius, thought
of then as the best interpreter of the
part, and for me he remains the best.
Years later, long after I had left the
LPO, when we were recording The Dream
of Gerontius with Sir Adrian Boult
with the New Philharmonia Orchestra
in 1975, Nicolai Gedda another outstanding
tenor whose recording of Lensky’s aria
from Eugene Onegin made with
the Philharmonia in 1953 is very beautiful,
was the Gerontius. Although he was someone
whose singing gave me very great pleasure
he was unable to bring the heart-stopping
fervour Heddle Nash brought to the part
of Gerontius.
It was
only when in 1957 we were rehearsing
the opera A Tale of Two Cities by
Arthur Benjamin for a BBC broadcast
that it became apparent that Nash could
not read music. Each aria was played
to him on the piano several times and
because of his acute ear and ability
to memorise quickly that was all that
he needed. He was not alone in not being
able to read music. One of the most
important roles the répétiteur
had in the past was to teach the singers
their part. Not being able to read music
is not a bar to being a great artist.
Another
great tenor, Beniamino Gigli, only a
few years older than Nash, had been
a star for forty years and was thought
by many to have inherited the mantle
of Caruso. On one occasion when I went
to play at a commercial recording session
with the George Melachrino orchestra,
I found to my surprise – and delight
– that instead of the light music arrangements
for which Melachrino was famous we were
to record several Neapolitan songs with
Gigli. It was an especial treat to hear
these songs sung idiomatically and though
he was then in his sixties and his voice
had lost a little of its bloom it still
retained the bel canto for which he
was famed
The
three outstanding tenors, Jon Vickers,
Peter Pears and Placido Domingo could
not have been more different to each
other in voice and style. Vickers, powerful
and virile was one of the finest heroic
tenors of our time. He still remained
very impressive when he sang some Wagner
extracts at a concert with us at a Philharmonia
concert not long before he retired
I first
heard Peter Pears in 1943. It was on
a broadcast of the then recently composed
Serenade by Benjamin Britten
for tenor, horn and strings, a wonderful
performance with Dennis Brain playing
the solo horn part. More than thirty
years later in 1977 or 78 Pears came
to sing it with the Philharmonia at
a Memorial Concert for Benjamin Britten,
his long-time friend and companion.
This was another wonderful performance
and because of the occasion particularly
moving. It fell to my lot as Chairman
of the Council to go and thank Pears
after the concert. I had been so overwhelmed
emotionally as I listened to this beautiful
music that I found that I was quite
unable to do more than mumble an incoherent
‘Thank you’ before I hastened away.
For
the past forty years no one has had
a more remarkable career than the Spanish
tenor Placido Domingo. He has performed
over a hundred complete operas ranging
from Mozart to Puccini, Verdi to Wagner,
and including Berlioz, Ginastera and
Zarzuela, the idiomatic Spanish form
of operetta. No tenor has managed his
voice and career more intelligently.
But he has not been satisfied with being
solely a great operatic tenor, he has
also been a successful administrator.
As well as continuing to sing new roles
well into his sixties he increasingly
conducts as well. I remember recording
Tosca and Aida with him
when he sang the roles of Cavaradossi
and Radames. He was always charming,
urbane and sang beautifully. He was
also magisterial in an unobtrusive way.
On the recording of Aida, with
Riccardo Muti conducting, Domingo was
joined by another Spanish artist, the
soprano Montserrat Caballe, who had
a beautiful creamy voice and superb
legato.
The
baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau has
had a long and prestigious career in
opera and was one of the finest lieder
singers of our time. The first time
I saw Fischer-Dieskau was when he was
only about twenty-four or twenty-five.
We were rehearsing at the Abbey Road
studios and as the tall young Fischer-Dieskau
and the short elderly Sir Thomas Beecham
came in through the door of studio they
presented a surprising and amusing sight.
They looked liked father and son, but
with the father fifty years younger
than his son.
My earliest
recollection of taking part in performances
with very fine singers was with the
two sopranos, Joan Hammond and Maggie
Teyte. This was when they sang with
the LPO in the first half of the 1940s.
By then Joan Hammond had been struck
down by polio and was obliged to sing
whilst in a wheelchair. This was particularly
cruel for someone who had been an outstanding
athlete and had had a distinguished
career on the operatic stage. Nonetheless
her voice remained full and strong when
she sang Tatiana’s Letter Song from
Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.
One of my all-time favourites remains
Maggie Teyte. This beautiful and sensitive
artist was renowned for her singing
of French music, though born in Wolverhampton.
She studied with Debussy and was famous
for her performance as Mélisande
in his opera Pelléas et Mélisande.
On several occasions she sang Ravel’s
Scheherazade, three songs with
orchestra, with the LPO. Not only did
she have a lovely voice but she was
also enchanting and I think the most
refined and delicate artist I can recall.
It is so seldom that one hears French
sung with a true French accent, other
than by French singers.
Elisabeth
Schwarzkopf was married to Walter Legge
who founded and owned the Philharmonia
Orchestra from 1945 until 1964, and
she sang with us quite a number of times.
She was a very fine artist and I recall
a number of her performances, in particular
when she sang The Four Last Songs
by Richard Strauss, which I found extremely
moving. There is one occasion I recall
not only for her beautiful singing.
We were at the Royal Festival Hall for
a rehearsal in the morning for a concert
that evening. Lucia Popp, then in her
twenties and an extremely attractive
young woman, looked very elegant when
she came on the platform. She was followed
by Schwarzkopf who was wearing an old
raincoat and looked like a sack tied
up in the middle. In the evening when
Schwarzkopf came on she was wearing
a beautiful white wig and a silver/blue
dress, absolutely right for the arias
from Strauss’s last opera Capriccio.
When she came onto the platform it was
with such dignity and grandeur that
she made everyone else on the platform
look quite dowdy. The applause for her
performance was so great that she agreed
to sing an encore. The item she chose
was a song from the operetta Der
Opernball, Im chambre séparée,
by the little known composer Richard
Heuberger. Her performance showed that
like most very fine artists she could
sing a charming and lovely trifle as
beautifully as The Four Last Songs
or the Missa Solemnis
by Beethoven.
Several
years later I was sitting in one of
the cafes on the Ring in Vienna having
a quiet cup of coffee. One of the other
customers, seeing my clarinet case with
a Philharmonia label pasted on it, came
over and started talking to me. He told
me that the great violinist Fritz Kreisler
had been a regular customer and that
one evening Heuberger had arrived, extremely
distraught, and told Kreisler that he
was at his wits end. The first rehearsals
for his new operetta were to start the
following week and he had still been
unable to write a really good tune for
it. Apparently, after a few minutes
thought Kreisler had scribbled some
music on the back of a menu. It is said
that it is this music that became Im
chambre séparée.
There
were so many superb artists who were
singing during my time in the profession
that there is only room to write about
those that remain most vivid in my memory.
To give some idea of just how many there
were I will list some of the most distinguished
that I remember I actually heard ‘live’
(as we say now) when taking part in
performances with them: Joan Sutherland,
Isobel Baillie, Eva Turner, Anna Moffo,
Ileana Cotrubas, Mirella Freni, Irmgard
Seefried, Janet Baker, Fiorenza Cossotto,
George London, Peter Glossop, John Tomlinson.
There were many more I was not fortunate
enough to work with.
It is
generally agreed that the overall standard
of singing is not as high now as it
has been in the past, at the same time
as the standard of instrumental skill
on all instruments has increased to
the point where virtuosity has become
relatively commonplace. It would seem
that for some years a good many talented
young singers have been prevailed upon
to undertake roles for which their voices
have not yet developed sufficiently
and to sing far too frequently. One
now hears so many artists who as long
as they sing piano and mezzo forte sound
fine. But when they have to sing forte
and project over a large orchestra they
develop an uncontrolled and intrusive
vibrato.
Perhaps,
in a world dominated by commercial interests,
agents and others may allow an ambitious
young singer to exploit their voice
too quickly rather than letting it mature
more slowly so that it can develop at
its own pace. Rapid air travel, rather
than the much slower and relaxed journeys
by sea that singers were obliged to
take in the past, has made it tempting
to sing in San Francisco one day and
in London a couple of days later. But
there is no instrument so easily damaged
nor as precious and vulnerable as the
human voice. More valuable than any
Stradivarius. Once lost it is irreplaceable.
But
there are still singers who have been
granted a fine instrument by nature
and yet fail to excite listeners as
in the past. Artists of an older generation
– Jon Vickers, Joan Sutherland and others
– make the point that they owed much
to what they learned from the great
conductors they worked with. Toscanini,
Furtwangler, de Sabata, Walter, Beecham,
Barbirolli and von Karajan and other
very good conductors worked extensively
in the opera house and had the same
affect on singers that they had on orchestras.
It is
the ability to express such a wide range
of emotions with a beautiful and exciting
voice that all the great vocal artists
had, and some still have, that inspired
audiences to such outbursts of enthusiasm.
They can convey tenderness and rage,
love and hate, charm and resolution,
resignation, forgiveness and despair
in a way that no instrument can hope
to match.
Chapter
20
