This live Metropolitan performance has been
circulating in various fairly unsatisfactory guises ever since
the broadcast of 11 November 1950. There is a cheap Myto edition
in dim but listenable sound but this painstaking re-mastering
by Ward Marston is markedly cleaner and fuller and thus very
welcome. He contributes an interesting note explaining just
how he contrived to produce a complete, re-engineered performance
from disparate sources. However, be warned: this is the four
act version and quite heavily cut, and thus valuable primarily
for its historical significance as a showcase for four of
the finest male voices of the time singing together in one
of Verdi's most complex works.
Those voices are mostly to the fore and the
unobtrusive, rhythmically steady direction of Fritz Stiedry
(1887-1968) permits a direct, unfussy, performance to unfold.
Veteran Met star Geraldine Farrar complained that Stiedry’s
tempi were too stolid to do service to Verdi and it is true
that at times they stretch the singers. However, the compensation
is an added depth and poignancy that a faster, less reflective
beat can occlude.
The contrast between Delia Rigal's matronly,
wobbly Elisabetta - she really does sound like Carlo's mother,
which is wholly inappropriate - and Björling's impassioned,
finely focused Carlo makes one regret all the more that finer
female voices were not cast in this important production,
which both opened the season and marked the beginning of Rudolf
Bing’s tenure as General Manager. If you have never before
heard of Delia Rigal, her plodding, poetry-free account of
"Non pianger, mia compagana" and the tepid applause
it arouses will give you a clue why; I am afraid that she
was not a front-rank artist. What a shame that Eleanor Steber
and Blanche Thebom or Giulietta Simionato were not singing
that November evening. Fedora Barbieri was very much a star,
and she manages some imposing moments, but as she lumbers
through Eboli's first aria you wonder what possessed her to
take on a rôle to whose technical demands she is manifestly
unsuited: it requires a fleet mezzo who, as well as having
a dark contralto sound (which she does) and secure top notes
(which she doesn’t), can negotiate hairpin bends (just the
way she can't). She partially compensates for what she lacks
in technical assurance by sheer gusto and a venomous delivery
of the Italian text, but she is often not very grateful on
the ear. It is thus no great loss that both Rigal and Barbieri
are denied the second verse of their first act arias; other
cuts - see below - are more grievous.
Vocal balm and welcome relief come with the
rich tones of both Robert Merrill, who once more displays
his beautiful bronze timbre and perfect legato - but, unforgivably,
his showpiece, "Per me giunto" is cut. Equally fine
is the twenty-seven year old Cesare Siepi, who sonorously
assumes the rôle of King Philip as if he had been singing
it for a lifetime; it is barely inferior in pathos and vocal
beauty to, for example, his 1972 live Metropolitan performance
over twenty years later. As if the presence of those three
were not enough, we also get to hear the rotund bass of the
great Jerome Hines as Il Grande Inquisitor. Björling is in
his finest voice, with clarion top-notes and great energy,
such that, contrary to some performances where he merely (merely?)
stands and sings, here he really inhabits the part. Apparently
he was not keen on attending rehearsals, despite never having
sung Don Carlo on stage in Italian before, but you would never
guess it from the security and commitment of his performance.
One or two doubtful moments of intonation and the odd characteristic
verbal slip apart - surely forgivable in a live performance
- this was clearly one of his finest evenings. Although his
voice was never huge, it seems to come across the footlights
without any difficulty. Finally, and in order to redress the
balance regarding my observations on the comparative inadequacy
of the women's voices, it is only fair to mention that Rigal
comes into best voice - far too late - for the concluding
duet "Ma lassù" spinning a lovely legato mezza-voce
then floating a beautiful top C, and that Lucine Amara contributes
an ethereal voce dal cielo. This was her début, just as it
was Bing’s; she became a Met stalwart and one of his favourite
and most dependable artists.
As this set stretches to three discs, it avoids
the horrible fade-out and break which so disfigures the Auto-da-fé
scene in the two disc Myto edition, and there is room for
a supplement consisting of excerpts from the earlier telecast
performance on 6 November 1950. I hardly think it was worthwhile
including them given the poor sound quality but Marston suggests
that this might well have been “a more inspired performance
than the 11 November matinee” – if only we could hear it better.
This set is expensive compared with the Myto
edition and will never be a first choice for this inexhaustibly
subtle and moving opera, but you might well want it as a supplement
or as a record of four great, favourite male voices. Above
all, we can hear Björling in one of his greatest roles, singing
as well as he is to be heard anywhere and at any time in his
career.
Ralph Moore
see also review
by Goran Forsling
Chorus and Orchestra
of the Metropolitan Opera House/Fritz Stiedry 
