Comparative versions:
Maria Callas - Verdi Arias vol.1 EMI CDC
7 47730 2
Maria Callas - Verdi Arias vol 2 EMI CDC
7 47943 2
Gwyneth Jones MDC 461 5912
If you’re ‘discovering’
Verdi opera for the first time and want
a collection of soprano sweetmeats,
as it were, then you are unlikely to
find this distasteful. However, if,
like me, you delve deeper into each
aria and want more than mere surface
pleasure, any disc of this kind has
its work cut out.
In general terms von
Benza’s voice is attractive, powerful
with an edgy tone in forte, and capable
of hushed sensitivity in piano. The
range is useful (over two octaves),
the attack on note for the most part
accurate. The booklet note recounts,
a little pretentiously perhaps, the
main points of her career to date –
from training in Kiev and Budapest via
competition successes in Vienna and
Salzburg to houses around Europe and
the Far East. So we are faced with an
experienced stage performer.
That brings me to my
first reservation about the disc in
general: it has too little sense of
the stage about it. Listening to Ben
io t’invenni, I wondered who was
following who? The voice seemed almost
self-conscious in its cautiously floated
line and de Prosperis did not keep up
the dynamic to the extent one would
hope for. Elsewhere (Ritorna vincitor,
for example) promise of dynamism is
shown but lost or dashed later in the
performance, which demonstrates that
the conductor has little of individuality
to say. The same, sadly, can be said
of his brief booklet synopses of the
arias. The orchestra is averagely recorded,
perhaps too thinly in the violins. Solo
lines from woodwind are present, though
somewhat lacking in character for the
most part.
That leaves von Benza
to carry the show, which she does not
manage to do: attention to detail ultimately
lets her down.
In Tacea la notte
placida, the opening track, von
Benza’s voice does not really catch
the ear until the word ‘placida’ – by
which time it is obvious that the words
might not always get the care they deserve.
Of course, it’s tough on singers these
days having to sing in maybe four or
more languages and be understood in
them. In a live performance one is more
willing to let it pass, but a recording
is forever – and the competition substantial.
Ecco l’orrido campo,
like much else here, will in the minds
of many collectors be associated with
the interpretation set down by Maria
Callas in Paris under Nicola Rescigno.
Where Callas gets between the notes
to the core of the drama, despite all
her vocal ‘problems’, von Benza tries
but never is a real rival. Yes there
is a nice lower chest voice, but throughout
the range she fails to cut convincingly
to the chase. Where’s the shock, the
horror, the urgency?
The two Callas CDs
of Verdi arias cover much the same ground,
and also take in arias from Aroldo,
Il Corsaro, Ernarni, Macbeth, I vespri
siciliani and I Lombardi along the way.
Plus they attack all with greater insight
and dramatic conviction. Alternatively,
take Gwyneth Jones, in her youth a fine
Verdian, indeed had Wagner not dominated
her career no doubt her Verdian prowess
would be better known. Even early on
hers was an unruly instrument, but the
reading she offers of Tu che le vanitá,
like Callas, shows how much is left
wanting in von Benza’s assumption. So
to does Jones’ Ave Maria, and
it’s the most sensitive on disc that
I know.
Of course, Callas assumed
Violetta, and for many her Covent Garden
reading from 1958 remains unsurpassed.
There are others of note: Cotrubas or
Gheorghiu, would head my list. All offer
more than von Benza. There are signs
though that her voice is already too
heavy for the music.
Although von Benza
turns in generally decent performances,
go for more incisive alternatives.
Evan Dickerson
Georgina von Benza (soprano) 
