The three short operas which together make up Il Trittico -
Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi
- have always been, for me, the toughest nut to crack among
Puccini’s operas. For all the beauty of the music, Suor Angelica
is very static and the ending somewhat contrived by comparison
with Tosca, La Bohème, Madama Butterfly,
Turandot and even Manon Lescaut, all of which rank
among my favourite operas after Mozart and Wagner. With an all-female
cast, too, there’s no opportunity for those wonderful duets.
If any recording was going to convince me to add
Suor Angelica to that select list, it would have to
be this one. Made in 1957, it was released to immediate acclaim
and still finds a deserved place in the catalogue, as an EMI
Great Recording (212714-2, 3 mid-price CDs with the other
Trittico recordings), on the GOP label (GOP66391, mid-price)
and now, even less expensively, in one of the Naxos Mark Obert-Thorn
transfers, where it joins two other Puccini recordings by
Victoria de los Angeles, her classic recording of La Bohème,
with Jussi Björling under Sir Thomas Beecham (8.111249-50)
and Butterfly with Giuseppe Di Stefano under Gianandrea
Gavazzeni (8.111291-2). Göran Forsling thought that the latter
should be in every Puccini collection – see review.
I recently gave a strong recommendation to another
transfer of that Bohème, on the Past Classics label
in my January, 2009, Download Roundup. It remains incomparable
and it’s especially good value as a download from eMusic,
on just four tracks, potentially for less than £1. With 22
tracks, their download of this new Suor reissue offers
much poorer value, working out at around the same price as
the CD. Classicsonline would be a better bet for a download
in this case, but, even so, fails to undercut the £3.98 for
which amazon.co.uk is offering the CD.
The de los Angeles/Beecham Bohème not only
remains the best performance available, it also sounds well
in the Past Classics transfer. If anything, the new Naxos transfer of Suor Angelica sounds even better.
Though made as late as 1957, when stereo recording was well
established, Suor was recorded in mono. Otherwise the
transfer is easy to live with – a little thin, perhaps, but
the ear easily adjusts. There’s a little distortion in the
loudest passages, but it’s nothing to worry about. My Arcam
Solo totally refused to recognise the CD – a trick which it
occasionally plays – but my other decks were more than happy
with it.
If de los Angeles in Bohème still has the power to convince
me, has this version of Suor converted me? Her performance
in particular was met with superlatives in 1957 – even those
who had not been convinced by her Butterfly were won
over – and those superlatives are thoroughly deserved. It’s
largely thanks to her that this recording just avoids the
sentimentality which lies just below the surface. When, having
bidden farewell to her sisters, Angelica’s thoughts turn to
suicide – La grazia è discesa dal cielo (track 19)
– and she greets the poisonous flowers as her friends, amici
fiori, it’s perilously easy to make the portrayal sound
mawkish. It’s not that de los
Angeles
plays down the emotion, she somehow contrives to let us hear
it just below the surface without over-emphasis.
Fedora Barbieri as the Princess, Angelica’s aunt,
offers the perfect vocal contrast. If anything, she’s just
a little too imperious and unyielding. We never feel, as the
Naxos summary implies, that she is almost about to soften
in Or son due anni (track 16). The other roles are
well sung, with some of the singers in multiple parts, and
the Rome Opera House Chorus and Orchestra give of their best
under Maestro Serafin.
Back in 1957, the original recording on ALP1577
cost more than £2 – equivalent to well over £40 in current
values. To have it now for a small fraction of that cost is
largesse indeed. There’s no libretto, but the text is readily
available online, in Italian and translation.
This is a valuable addition to the Naxos series of historical Great
Opera Recordings. It may not have persuaded me to place Suor
Angelica in the front rank of Puccini operas, but it easily
merits an important place in the catalogue – I seriously considered
nominating it my Bargain of the Month.
Don’t forget that Naxos also have some modern recordings
of Puccini which are well worth considering; there are no
big names and none of them would be first choice, but they
all offer very acceptable budget-price alternatives. Madama
Butterfly (8.660078-9, conducted by Günter Neuhold, also
available in 3-CD Opera Plus format, 8.660910-12) even restores
some valuable music from the 1904 original. Rahbari’s accounts
of Manon Lescaut (8.660019-20), Tosca (8.660001-2)
and Butterfly (8.660015-16) are also well worth considering.
Brian
Wilson
