Raphaël Arié (1920-1988) was never as well
known as his two great compatriots Nicolai Ghiaurov and Boris
Christoff but he is the third in the trinity of great Bulgarian
basses. Born in Sofia he studied with the important pedagogue
Christo Brambarov who guided his pupil’s career with care
and caution. He won the Geneva singing competition in 1946,
continuing studies in Italy with stellar figures such as Stracciari
and Granforte and soon made a name for himself in Prokofiev,
in Boris and Don Giovanni. He performed widely in Italy and
France in particular – though in 1953 he was chosen as the
Commendatore for a Salzburg Festival performance under Furtwängler
– even if he made Rome his base. His successes in the Italian
repertoire were many, his forays into German opera (much less
lieder), few.
The trajectory
of his career might indicate a certain stalling – a lack
of Vienna, Met, Covent Garden performances, a desire to
sing in houses closer to home. But the truth is that Arié
was a considerable artist whose relative lack of charismatic
vocalising perhaps prevented him from reaching the topmost
echelons of international houses. His Rossini immediately
discloses a voice of refined imagination. It’s elegant,
forwardly produced, well sustained, even of tone and lacking
melodramatic flourish. It was certainly a voice with presence,
lest one mistakes refinement for reluctance to engage –
his Bellini is impressively characterised, fully rolled
“r’s” whilst his Verdi reinforces, with the beauty of his
line, his bel canto lineage. The extract from Ernani may
not be the most sulphurous or incendiary but it is beautifully
done.
One can compare
the elegance and precision he habitually displayed with
the rather hell for leather untidiness of the tenor Tomaso
Spataru in their duet from Gounod’s Faust. If one measures
his Boris (and by implication his Glinka) with Christoff
or even Chaliapin of course, one finds him lacking in histrionic
projection – but there’s no lack of commensurate sonorous
directness. Certainly the lurid dramas enacted by others
was not Arié’s way – as one can plainly note in Boris’ Farewell
scene. He triumphs rather in the lyricism of Anton Rubinstein
or in the full warmth he brings to Eugene Onegin. There,
one feels, he is intimately at home.
His recordings
here date from 1947 to 1953 and were all made for Decca.
They sound excellent here and do justice both to his voice
and the original engineering.
Jonathan
Woolf
Raphaël Arié (bass)
