Naxos have been enormously
successful in producing good recordings
selling at affordable prices. In so
doing they make valuable classical music
(and many other genres) available to
both impecunious beginners and jaded
collectors. During the last few years
they have been increasingly adventurous
in choice of repertoire; according to
their own advertising they are the company
worldwide which issues most premiere
recording. They also have educational
ambitions. They are meeting a real need.
I know that there are classical music
snobs who look down upon populistic
behaviour such as giving spoken introductions
at live concerts. However, having done
that myself for many years I know that
the general music lover (as opposed
to the "expert") appreciates
that. I have heard people say for example:
"If you hadn’t given me the background
to that Berio-piece I would have thought
it was just noisy; now when I listened
I found so many beautiful things that
I would like to hear it again. Where
can I get a recording?" That my
constant answer is: "Not in this
town, anyway." is another story.
So I applaud this Naxos initiative.
Obviously many others also do, since
they continue to release this type of
disc.
I haven’t heard any
of these "Opera explained"records
before but I see in the booklet that
there is a long list. All the presentations
are written by Thomson Smillie and narrated
by David Timson. If they are all as
good as this present Turandot, which
I have good reason to believe, Naxos
are to be congratulated for another
success.
It isn’t very easy,
maybe not even necessary, to make a
detailed track-by-track analysis, so
I will confine myself to a few general
remarks. To begin with I feel that Mr
Smillie has the right attitude to the
listeners. He isn’t "talking down"
to us, nor does he take it for granted
that we know a lot of music history
or musicology. He isn’t afraid of using
the correct terminology, but he explains
it.
In this case he has
a very obvious starting point: a well-known
tune. Can there be anyone, however ignorant
of opera, who hasn’t heard Nessun
dorma. So he lets us hear a couple
of snippets from the aria and then places
Puccini and Turandot in a historical
context, which means that after the
first quarter of an hour we are quite
well informed of the development of
opera where Puccini is the last "big"
name in a 300-year-long golden line
of composers.
After that we follow
the plot from the start of the opera
to the final bars – composed not by
Puccini, who died before he had time
to finish his work, but by Franco Alfano,
who mainly tried to complete Puccini’s
sketches.
I didn’t make many
notes while I listened; I just enjoyed
hearing David Timson’s narration, so
right in tone, sprinkled with well-chosen
musical examples, and found myself nodding
approvingly time after time. After this
more than hour-long journey through
Puccini’s score I felt I had got a deeper
understanding of the music – and the
drama. I believe that to someone coming
new to this opera it will be a real
eye-opener. Personally I went straight
to letter P in my opera collection and
took out the almost 40-year-old Molinari-Pradelli
recording with Birgit Nilsson and Franco
Corelli and played parts of it. I wish
I had had the time to play it from start
to end, but I had to write this review
before midnight. I just dipped into
it, listening to Nilsson’s magnificent
In questa reggia and Liù’s
Tu che di gel sei cinta before
jumping to the final pages. All this
is in surprisingly good sound, definitely
better than Naxos’s, and with much more
space around orchestra and voices. This
is important in such a "big"
opera.
And that leads me over
to Naxos’s musical extracts. I had seen
a couple of reviews
of the complete recording, one very
positive, one decidedly negative. And
my view? It isn’t easy to give a verdict
from just these short excerpts, but
I like Rahbari’s conducting. He seems
eager to get things going, wanting to
get the answers to the riddles maybe?
Of the singers Lando Bartolini has almost
all the notes well within his reach
and sounds heroic although a bit strained.
Turandot herself, Giovanna Casolla,
has sung many a Turandot before; she
took part in those historic performances
in Peking (as it once was) which also
were recorded and released by RCA some
years ago. Few sopranos, Nilsson excepted,
can go on singing this devilish part
without having their voices affected.
In Casolla’s case it is that big vibrato
that sometimes makes you wonder: what
note is she aiming at? I heard her,
almost 20 years ago, when she must have
been quite young, singing Maddalena
in Andrea Chenier in Verona, and I have
no recollections of a wobbler then.
Anyway, she isn’t bad at all, and it
is a big voice. Still, when the commentary
says that a Turandot needs a voice like
a laser-beam to cut through the thick
textures of the orchestra, what we hear
is rather like the hooting of a fire-siren.
Listen to Nilsson and there you have
the laser!
But don’t be misled
by this carping. On the whole I liked
very much what I heard. Another asset
is the humorous approach from writer
and narrator alike. Turandot is a serious
opera, but a smile or two in the middle
of all the chill and violence isn’t
at all out of place. Puccini liked a
good laugh and in most of his mature
operas there are comic parts: La Bohème,
Tosca, Madama Butterfly, La Fanciulla
del West and – of course – Ping, Pang
and Pong in this opera.
Even if you think you
know your Turandot you will get much
pleasure out of this disc; if you are
a beginner in the field, it is a must!
And I will try to find some other records
in this same series – but of course
not in this town.
And now I have to go
back to my CD-player and hear the rest
of Turandot before midnight.
Göran Forsling
Malaga
Philharmonic Orchestra, Choral Society of Bilbao,
Children’s Chorus; Escolanía Santa Maria
de la Victoria/Alexander Rahbari