> Jennie Tourel Decca Singers Series 467 907-2 [JF]: Classical Reviews- January 2002 MusicWeb(UK)

MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

HOFFNUNG for CHRISTMAS? an ideal Christmas present for yourself or your friends.
Books posted the day the order is received


Jennie TOUREL (1900-) mezzo-soprano
The Singers series

Songs by Gluck, Rossini, Bizet, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Grechaninov, etc.
Accompanied by Paul Ulanovsky & Brooks Smith (piano)
Rec. Dates unknown
DECCA 467 907-2 [73.03]


BUY NOW 

Crotchet   AmazonUK   AmazonUS


 


This disc is one of the first twenty, issued on the Decca label, under the generic title ‘The Singers’. The series, with another thirty in preparation, claims to present the artistry of the greatest singers from the first century of recording history. Ardoin had access to the recorded annals of DG, Philips and Decca. More significantly, these discs are more than merely sonic artefacts, being enhanced for those with ROM facility, to include photo gallery, biographies and texts. If you lack a CD-ROM you have to make do with a booklet with brief essay and track listing, the latter lacking such basic information as to the operatic character singing the aria. The presentation aims to be different and unique, being a cardboard case within a plastic slip case emblazoned ‘The Singers’.

The advertisement for this series makes much of the fact that the choice of the singers was made by the late John Ardoin, "the distinguished critic and vocal authority". The choice is certainly individual, even idiosyncratic, none more so than with the singer featured on this disc.

Jennie Tourel was born in Russia, then fled with her family to France at the time of the Bolshevik revolution, and to the USA just before the outbreak of World War II. She started her vocal studies in Paris where she made her debut in Borodin's Prince Igor in 1930. Her career developed rapidly and she sang Charlotte, Mignon, Cherubino and over 400 Carmens at the Opéra-Comique between 1933 and 1939. Tourel made her Met. debut in 1937, where, as well as Carmen, she was a renowned Rosina and Adalgisa.

Tourel created the role of Baba the Turk in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, in Venice in 1951, in a cast that included Otakar Kraus as Nick Shadow and Elisabeth Schwartzkopf as Anne Trulove. She did not appear in the Met's first production of The Rake, as, by then in her 50s, and settled in America, she was mainly known as a recitalist which is as she is heard on this CD.

This disc is drawn in part from two LPs she recorded for American Decca. No recording dates are given. However, as the first 11 tracks are in stereo and the second in mono, an approximation placing the sessions as early as the mid-late 1950s can be made.

The first three tracks are of songs by Rossini for the Venice Regata, and previously unpublished. They illustrate Tourel's mezzo in many facets – vivacious, full toned, rich in the lower register and with a good top. However, she is not extended unduly until the more demanding pieces on the second mono half of the disc devoted to Russian repertoire. Here the voice shows more of its dramatic overtones. A student or enthusiast of the human singing voice as John Ardoin was, could have made an interesting comparison with our contemporary, Olga Borodina. We can hear Borodina on disc in the dramatic operatic repertoire; regrettably we cannot do that with Jennie Tourel. Although she appeared in Vol. 4 of EMI's 'Record of Singing' and recorded for American Columbia (later bought by Sony) I do not find any issues readily available.

The piano accompanists are sympathetic and the recording is forward and clear, with plenty of presence. The booklet essay, by John Ardoin himself, is informative and enthusiastic about the singer.


Robert J Farr


Return to Index

Error processing SSI file