In his booklet essay,
London Green puts Boito alongside Verdi
at the creative centre of Italian music
in the second half of the 19th
century and places Toscanini as the
fiery interpretative master of the first
half of the 20th. This caused
me to pause and think. Certainly without
Boito there would have been no Otello
or Falstaff. Nor would La Scala have
flourished in the manner it did during
Toscanini’s tenure as the theatre’s
principal conductor; Boito was vitally
influential to that appointment.
Boito’s first opera,
Mefistofele, was premiered at La Scala
on March 5th 1868 but was
not a success. Unlike Gounod’s Faust,
Boito based his opera on both parts
of Goethe’s work. Thus, after Marguerite’s
death there is the scene of ‘The Night
of the Classical Sabbath’ introducing
Helen of Troy. Despite the relative
lack of success of the work, Toscanini
regularly revived it at La Scala, memorably
in 1901 with Caruso as Faust and Chaliapin,
on his house debut, as Mefistofele.
Toscanini regularly encouraged Boito
to complete his life’s work, the opera
Nerone. A premiere was planned for La
Scala in 1914 featuring the conductor
and Caruso both then based at the Met.
However, the score was not finished
and remained so at Boito’s death in
1918 aged 76. Over the following years
Toscanini supervised the musical completion
of Nerone and presented it at La Scala
on May 1st 1924 with Pertile
and Journet in the most elaborate and
expensive production in the theatre’s
history.
At the end of World
War 2 La Scala was in ruins as a consequence
of an allied bombing raid in August
1943. The theatre was rebuilt within
a year of the end of the war. Toscanini
who had personally subscribed one hundred
thousand Lire towards the reconstruction
was invited to conduct the opening concert
on May 11th 1946. As a requirement
of his participation the conductor demanded
the reinstatement of his former chorus
master, Vittore Veneziani. A Jew, he
had been banished from the theatre by
the Fascists. Two years after the reopening
concert Toscanini returned to conduct
fully-staged scenes from Boito’s two
operas in commemoration of the composer’s
death some thirty years before. Whilst
most of the singers, the young Renata
Tebaldi apart, had at the reopening
been of the older generation of Italian
singers, the Boito Memorial Concert
featured the coming generation.
This Guild recording
of the Boito Memorial Concert is derived
from acetate discs of a broadcast transmission.
Like many recordings from La Scala it
has a rather restricted and boxy, sound.
To this must be added further problems
of odd extraneous noises and loss of
focus on voices. These noises are not
so numerous as to be a source of major
distraction, although the rather airless
acoustic takes some getting used to.
It is certainly worth the effort to
hear Toscanini and the La Scala chorus
in full flow (CD 1 trs. 1, 5-7). An
Italian chorus has a particular squilla,
and when as well disciplined as here,
and giving it their all, the thrilling
sound makes the remaining hairs on my
head stand on end. Cesare Siepi was
seen in Italy as the natural successor
to Tancredi Pesaro and Ezio Pinza in
the basso cantante repertoire. As physically
elegant as Pinza he was more lyric in
timbre. Despite the soloists being set
too far back on the sound-stage his
lean and even (not thin) tone penetrates
the proceedings (CD 1 tr. 5). His interpretation
of Mefistofele is incisive as well as
mellifluous. There is no wooliness or
lugubrious tone. Siepi carries his vocal
strengths into his interpretation of
Simon Mago in the extracts from Nerone
(CD 2 tr. 1). If Toscanini was keen
to promote the coming generation of
Italian singers he should have cast
Tebaldi rather than bringing Herva Nelli,
a favourite of his, from the Met; the
great compared with the merely adequate.
Of the other soloists only the Rubria
of Giulietta Simionato, recently ‘discovered’
at age 37, evinces real quality with
beautiful tone and well-characterised
singing.
The appendices have
no particular distinction and could
have been better chosen. The brief radio
commentary is in Italian. The booklet
essay is informative and interesting
whilst the singer biographies are a
shade eulogistic. The performances of
the Boito works were part of a great
La Scala night. It is commendable of
Guild to enable us to share a memorable
night, and particularly to allow us
to witness two great Italian singers
who were destined to make a considerable
impact over the next ten years or so
- longer in Siepi’s case. Toscanini’s
conducting and the singing of the chorus
make this issue of these rarely performed
works memorable.
Robert J Farr
see also review
by Jonathan
Woolf
Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan/Arturo
Toscanini 
