The Naxos Gigli
series, which collectors will know first appeared on Romophone,
has now reached volume nine. It takes us to the years 1936-1938
when Gigli was in his mid-forties and comprises the fruit
of recording sessions in Berlin, Milan and London. The repertoire
is varied as well, as if in analogue to this geographical
spread. There are operatic assumptions, naturally, as well
as popular song and there are also some of those inelegantly
salon-ish lieder arrangements that some singers essayed
around this time.
Being a chronological
series we can follow the individual sessions as they unfold;
it makes listening somewhat quixotic but one can always
programme a preferred sequence I suppose. Taking the twenty-two
tracks as they come, as it were, offers it own pleasures.
The De Curtis is ringing, fervent and gutsy. Conductor Alois
Melichar – always in and out of the Berlin studios during
these years – contributes what I assume is his own offering,
a rather pleasingly undistinguished song. The Berlin session
in May 1936 then continued with three syrupy, choir-and–harp
arrangements of religious songs. I rather deplore, in my
flinty Northern European way, the sobs Gigli inflicts on
the Bach-Gounod and the air of verismo that he imports,
perhaps with an air of mounting desperation. He tends to
bleat at phrase endings in the Bizet and is simply too butch
for the Franck – too emotive and too much gestural gear
changing. Still, he had a tough assignment here as he did
in the Schumann and Grieg, both similarly accompanied by
celestial forces. The former sounds uncomfortably like Mascagni
and the latter is so deliciously overheated it turns Un
rêve into operatic overdrive.
No, the most
purely Gigli-esque things here, the ones that capture voice
and vocal gesture in the most intimate and rewarding way,
are the things one would expect. His Cilea is a model of
mezza voce, of refined coloration and a truly passionate
climax. The little Becce song is strongly characterised
and his Curci sports superb dynamic control. Two of the
sides recorded in Milan have garnered some reputation for
their affiliations with Italian nationalist sentiment but
of considerably more interest are the later 1938 Milan and
London sessions. These gave us a fine O soave fanciulla
with the elegant Caniglia, a warm and superbly controlled
Bixio song and Rossini’s La Danza, which has
all the requisite rhythmic attack and dynamism required.
The transfers
don’t differ especially from the earlier Romophones; they’re
excellent and the booklet notes are concise and helpfully
uncontroversial.
Jonathan
Woolf
see also
Review
by Göran Forsling
Beniamino Gigli (tenor),
Maria Caniglia (soprano) (track 14), Berlin State Opera Orchestra/Alois
Melichar (tr 1-3), Bruno Seidler-Winkler (tr 4-10), La Scala Orchestra
and Chorus/Giuseppe Antonicelli (tr 11-12), Orchestra/Walter Goehr (tr
13-14, 19-22), Orchestra/Dino Olivieri (tr 15-18) Recorded 24th
May 1936 in Electrola Studio A, Berlin(tr 1-4); 2nd June 1936
in Electrola Studio A, Berlin (tr 5-10), 8th March 1937 at
the Teatro della Cannobiana, Milan (tr 11-12), 28th May 1937
in Studio 1, Abbey Road, London (tr 13-14), 24th February 1938
at the Pro Salute Studios, Milan (tr 15-18), 4th June 1938
in Studio 1A, Abbey Road, London (tr 19-22)
