“Opera Fanatic” is the new label name for discs from the
familiar Bel Canto Society, which specialises in issuing historical
recordings and DVDs featuring such great tenors as Gigli, Del
Monaco and, of course, Franco Corelli. Given that only minimal
documentation is provided, I am pleased to see that the discs
come in a slimline case rather than the clunky, shelf-filling
box sets still favoured by too many record companies such as Gala.
Taped in Berlin
in 1961 while the Rome Opera were on tour, the recording is
sonically excellent, although there is more hiss than on the
live Salzburg recording from the following year, the prompter
is as omnipresent as Hamlet’s father’s ghost, and the thunderous
applause is prolonged and intrusive – or enthusiastically atmospheric,
depending on your attitude to live recording. The soprano’s
top notes cause some flap and distortion but there’s not much
coughing and we should not complain when a performance from
almost fifty years ago has been preserved in such clear and
immediate sound. I am sure, however, that Ward Marston or Mark
Obert-Thorn could eliminate that hissing.
My comparisons with
both live and studio recordings from around the same time reveal
that although Barbieri is still a tower of strength, the voice
is less flexible and more inclined to scoop than was the case
in either the 1952 Cellini set or with Karajan and Callas in
1955. The years have taken some of the tautness out of the sound,
the vibrato has loosened and the top is less easy. Indeed, she
avoids altogether the B-flat in her Act II narrative "Condotta
ell’era in ceppi" but does take the top B-flat right at
the end of the opera. Similarly, Bastianini, although still
in fine, saturnine voice, sounds a little hoarse and has less
amplitude of breath than in either the live Karajan performance
in Salzburg or the even better studio recording with Serafin
and Bergonzi, both recorded in the same month in 1962, shortly
before Bastianini’s throat cancer began to render his voice
unpredictable. Agostino Ferrin pins back our ears appropriately
at the beginning and delivers a fine, focused Ferrando. Corelli
is … well, Corelli. In all three of the recordings I compared.
I’m not sure that there is much in his performance to distinguish
one from another; he was a very consistent and self-critical
artist and could, as voice teacher Douglas Stanley used to say
of Melchior, always be relied upon to make the same mistakes
twice. Having said that, most of us are happier with Corelli’s
faults than most other tenors’ virtues and Corelli gives his
all here in Berlin. He sets out his stall early on by absurdly
prolonging his first top B-flat when Manrico declares his love
and from then on loses no opportunity to grandstand. It’s a
thrilling ride even if we are not always exactly aboard Verdi’s
wagon, and there are moments of great tenderness in Corelli’s
characterisation of Manrico, especially in his exchanges with
Azucena – all the more remarkable for the fact that he and Barbieri
were not on speaking terms since an incident in February 1960
in Naples, when Corelli ran up to a box to take a swing at a
one-man claque, allegedly paid by Barbieri to demand that she
take an unaccompanied bow after her second act duet with Corelli.
However he felt about her off-stage, “Coscia d’Oro” (or “Golden
Thighs”, as Barbieri memorably nicknamed him) did not let that
show in his relationship with his onstage mother. It is slightly
disappointing that Corelli invariably chose to transpose “Di
Quella Pira” down a semi-tone in live performances, especially
as he nails it in the studio recording and always took the D-flat
with the soprano at the end of Act 1. He goes over the top in
Act IV when he supposes that Leonora has sold herself to di
Luna and he takes the usual liberties with note values - but
these are mere details set against the poetry and fire of his
performance as a whole. His “Ah! Sė, ben mio” is especially
impressive: huge-breathed, with beautifully controlled diminuendi,
ample of tone, and full of desperate sentiment.
The biggest drawback
to this recording is the somewhat laboured performance of Mirella
Parutto as Leonora. She has a big – very big – ungainly spinto
soprano which tends to flatness at the top - but she almost
covers Corelli with her D-flat at the end of Act 1. She struggles
with the coloratura required in the cavatina of “Tacea la notte”
and in “D’amor sull’ali rosee”. At times she manages a sincerity
of utterance, even if it is in a kind of all-purpose mode, and
does some truly lovely things, such as the controlled crescendo
on “Primo che d’altri vivere” just before her death, but she
is clearly battling with this demanding role, and cannot compare
with the sopranos in the recordings I mention above. She is
perhaps typical of a kind of second-rank soprano in more plentiful
supply at that time for which we would be more grateful today.
Apparently she changed tessitura to mezzo-soprano in 1965 and
had a reasonably successful career.
This is a good chance
to hear that rare thing: an authentic performance of the ultimate
Italian opera, sung by all-Italian cast wholly immersed in Verdian
tradition, under an able and unobtrusive conductor who understands
the idiom and never lets the tension flag. There is the occasional
disjuncture between singers and pit that you might expect in
a live performance, but nothing serious. This is unlikely to
be your only “Trovatore”; on balance, if you want Corelli the
1965 Schippers studio recording is the best bet and I still
think that the live Salzburg performance is, overall, superior
to this one, especially with regard to the soprano – but it
makes a wonderful supplement, and a souvenir of Corelli at his
energised best.
Ralph Moore
Manrico - Franco
Corelli (tenor) 
