I can just imagine
the patrons at Rome’s Teatro Apollo
scratching their heads after Verdi’s
Il Trovatore premiered on the
night of 19 January 1853. ‘Bella musica’
they would have muttered amongst themselves
‘but - and here I’m showing my ignorance
of conversational Italian - the plot
she is incomprehensibile!’
Things haven’t changed
much in 153 years! I recently saw an
Opera Australia production of the same
opera in which the sets were a simple
black backdrop and a vinyl black floor
that reflected every thermal from the
hot stage-lights. And yet the set-design
made more sense than the libretto. No
wonder Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan had
such great success lampooning it in
‘The Gondoliers’.
The saving grace is
Verdi’s music. But even here, after
listening to this 2 CD set, I am not
convinced that this EMI digital resurrection
does great service to Verdi’s genius.
True, it has Callas in her prime singing
Leonora but somehow it felt as if the
great diva was having an off day. The
vocal tone and the perfect trills are
there and she was still young enough
not to have incurred the disturbing
vibrato that marked her later years.
But this role was not for her – well,
not for the first two acts anyway. Lacking
is the fire and the passion. There is
poetry a-plenty but who wants poetry
when Callas is around? She redeems herself
when the spark that characterises her
volcanic temperament is back in Tu
vedrai che amore in terra (CD2 track
12) and the duet with di Luna soon afterwards.
Rolando Panerai as
di Luna is in good voice, if occasionally
too loud. Somehow he and Fedora Barbieri
as Azucena were the rocks and stabilising
influences that should have ensured
the success of this 1956 recording.
Some of the tempi Karajan uses are slow
– di Luna’s aria Il balen del suo
sorriso (CD1 track 24) is a case
in point – but generally his conducting
supported the singer’s phrasing admirably.
Certainly his rambunctious moments are
aptly invigorating.
The weak link is Di
Stefano. I have written before about
Di Stefano’s taking on roles that were
not suited to his voice. This is one
of them. His lower and middle notes
are quite beautiful but once he hits
the higher register the voice tightens
and in some cases (finale of CD1 track
29) becomes noticeably strident. The
two successive high Cs in Di quella
pira (CD2 track 8) are notable for
their brevity and the fact that the
notes are suitably covered by the dynamics
of the chorus.
On the whole, I was
disappointed with the standard of the
transfers to digital. That could have
been the fault of the original but then
why choose them in the first place if
they are not suitable. Take the chorus
for example. It started off well but
then there was considerable distortion
in their ff when the orchestra
joined the climax in Act I, scene one
Sull’orlo del tetti (CD1 track
5). Chorus numbers generally sound mushy
when transferred to modern recording
techniques – but distorted as well?
And then there is something drastically
wrong with their pitch when, with hushed
tones, they reprise the Anvil Chorus
(CD1 track 16). The orchestra
too has that old-used-by quality in
most of its playing. It is noticeable
in CD1 although CD2 doesn’t appear to
be affected. Either that or I’d got
used to the sound by then. Throughout
it all Fedora Barbieri is a shining
beacon.
Having said all that,
if you are a rabid Callas fan do you
really care?
Randolph Magri-Overend
This recording
is also available in the EMI Great Recordings
of the Century series: Review
by Robert Farr
Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan/Herbert
von Karajan 
