Norma is one
of the very few bel canto operas
that has been played ever since it was
first performed in 1831. Performance
styles have varied through the years.
Listening to some of the historical
excerpts that form a substantial appendix
to the opera proper, we can hear good
examples of the prevailing verismo style
of the interwar years. Francesco Merli,
for example, sings Pollione’s aria as
if it were something by Mascagni, with
pinched tone and a lot of effort. No
bel canto here. Gina Cigna, one of the
great Norma’s of yesteryear, here heard
in the final scene of the opera from
a complete recording, is regal and seems
a close relative of Turandot’s, but
it is glorious singing. We also catch
a glimpse of Tancredi Pasero’s noble
bass voice. The other bass, the
bass of the 1920s, 1930s and
possibly 1940s, Ezio Pinza, could teach
any later bass what good legato singing
is all about. Like Rosa Ponselle he
understands the bel canto aesthetics.
It was a good idea to include these
excerpts for comparison.
This Norma,
together with the slightly earlier I
Puritani and Lucia di Lammermoor,
are now all restored and available on
Naxos (the Lucia will be reviewed
before long). They can be regarded as
the starting point for a renewed interest
in the bel canto repertoire and bel
canto singing in the 1950s – with Tullio
Serafin conducting and Maria Callas
as the heroine.
Working with La Scala
forces we can rest assured that the
old maestro has good playing and singing
at his disposal and he hardly ever puts
a foot wrong. Everything about his music-making
sounds natural. Being a man of the theatre
he never put himself in the foreground
– as certain "big" names tend
to do; he is the humble servant of the
music. And if that sounds like faint
praise it is certainly not intended
to be – quite the contrary.
Sound-wise there have
always been problems with these EMI
recordings. Even the latest releases
from EMI themselves, who of course have
the master tapes, have not been free
from criticism. There is distortion
and overloading inherent in the originals.
Mark Obert-Thorn, who has been working
with LP pressings, has done what he
can to minimize these defects and the
outcome is a product that is eminently
listenable, though one never forgets
that it is a fifty-year-old recording.
The music is well known,
I suppose, to most opera lovers, and
it is inspired - hardly a weak number,
although there are a couple of march-like
choruses that should perhaps carry a
"banality" health warning.
Bel canto of course,
first and foremost, is singers’ opera
and the singers have to be good: fine
voices, fluent technique, a feeling
for style. Not all of the present ones
have, I am afraid. Ebe Stignani, to
start with the oldest of them, was in
her 51st year when this recording
was made. She had had a long and illustrious
career, making her debut in 1925 as
Amneris in Aida, a part she recorded
in 1946 with Gigli and Serafin conducting.
There she is magnificent; here she is
still singing with authority, but it
is an old voice and Adalgisa has to
be young. It is also slightly worn in
places and has adopted that annoying
vibrato, which is such a useful means
of colouring the voice for certain effects,
but here becomes a constant impediment.
But there is no denying that she is
still a formidable artist in what turned
out to be her last recording.
Pollione is sung by
Mario Filippeschi, who never reached
real stardom but sang mainly in Italy
and South America. He was a decent singer
and made a few other recordings. I know
him mainly from a CETRA recording of
William Tell, where he is an
enthusiastic but unsubtle Arnold. In
that devilish part he has all the high
notes and he delivers them fearlessly.
And they are undoubtedly thrilling.
We can hear that heroic ring here also,
but mainly it is a workmanlike performance,
never inadequate but never memorable
either. Comparing him to the young Corelli
in the second Callas Norma, Filippeschi
doesn’t stand a chance.
And I am afraid that
Oroveso is even worse. Nicola Rossi-Lemeni
had quite a career for some years in
the early 1950s but his singing here
has little to commend it. It is basically
a large voice, but it is unsubtle, lacking
a true legato and most of his part is
barked staccato-like; very effortful
he sounds too. Although he was not yet
35 he sounds like an old man, which
Oroveso undoubtedly is. After all he
is Norma’s father; but he should also
be able to express some fatherly warmth
– and he doesn’t. Listen to Pinza in
the appendix and there we have the real
thing, in spite of some flat intonation.
But it is Callas’s
opera, first and foremost, and she is
magical. She has the power, the intensity,
but also the ability to spin a fine
and often heart-rending pianissimo thread.
But Callas’s enduring hallmark was her
power of living the part she
was singing. Time and again she makes
us believe that this is no theatre,
this is real life. Very few singers
in the history of recorded opera have
been able to colour their voice the
way Callas could. But her histrionic
skill and her striving for absolute
truth, however much strain it put on
her voice, eventually took its toll.
Here we notice that ugly beat that was
to become ever more prominent in years
to come and which many listeners associate
with Callas. In the Traviata
and Lucia recordings, made the
year before this Norma, and which
I have been listening to extensively
for some time, it is practically non-existent.
Probably sometime during the winter
of 1953-54 something happened. But here
that beat remains quite unobtrusive
and it does not detract from her positive
qualities.
Making a recommendation
for this opera is not easy. There are,
or at least have been, a number of good
recordings. Callas’s remake, also with
Serafin, has better co-singers but there
Callas is only a shadow of her former
self – vocally that is; her acting is
just as impressive. The Sutherland,
Horne, Bonynge from the mid-1960s is
marvellously sung by the two leading
ladies, but it’s mostly surface. The
remake, from the 1980s has Caballé
as a soprano Adalgisa, a Pavarotti in
good shape as Pollione and a sonorous
Samuel Ramey. However Sutherland is
past her best here. What remains is
the Cillario recording on RCA from the
early 1970s with a young "dream
cast": Caballé, Cossotto
(probably the best mezzo-Adalgisa ever),
Domingo and Raimondi (too baritonal
but beautifully sung). This one also
lacks real depth and Cillario’s conducting
is too reticent, but for constantly
good, ardent singing of four principals
rather early in their careers, it is
hard to beat. That said, you need this
Callas version for the best interpretation
of the title part on disc.
Göran Forsling