Falling out of Love

When I was a teenager, the talk of the town, at least in the opera house in Philadelphia, was the tenor Franco Corelli. Franco charmed the women with his dashing good looks and great legs; and impressed almost everyone with his beautiful voice and thrilling high notes. Of course, since his manager was the impresario and wrestling promoter Ray Fabiani, he sang frequently in Philadelphia. I heard Corelli several times in my youth and was certainly primed to like him and like him I did in both La Boheme and with the Met in Turandot, but something has changed over the years: I've fallen out of love with Mr. Corelli's Art. I think the final straw was the re-release of a Met Tosca on Sony with Leontyne Price. Diction is usually indistinct, (and he's Italian) and notes incessantly slid into one another, plus everything is sung forte. In short, everything seemed to be done in the service and comfort of his voice, not in the service of the composer or the role he is playing. I also found his acting rather stiff and he seemed to be thinking "When is my next high note". The Opera Co. of Philadelphia is staging Carmen now so I listened to the Van Karajan recording with Franco and heard that the usual problems were all in place, and his French was-"Mon Deiu". I also listened to a Met broadcast from the 50's with Mario Del Monaco conducted by Dimitri Metropoulos. Del Monaco and Corelli's voices were similar, they were both Spinto or Dramatic tenors but Del Monaco's singing in this performance was more musical and accurate. Yes, he could be be very loud but in this recording he was engaging and dramatic. But of course his legs weren't as nice.

A difficult choice

It's been a few weeks since hurricane Irene made a mess of things, sparing my cd collection but ruining my basement. This morning, while listening to Bruckner, my wife posed an interesting question; " If your collection was in eminent danger, which 10 cd's would you save?" Off the top of my head I thought of a few that would merit consideration, and those would be the ones that I have listened to the most over the years. 1. Korngold's "The Sea Hawk" with Gerheart   2. Rachmaninoff Piano concerto no 2 with William Kapell. 3. Shirley Horn "Here's to Life". 4 Mahler's Symphony no. 2 from the New York Philharmonic set with Zubin Metha conducting. 5. A collection of string music which includes Peter Warlock's Capriol Suite on the Nimbus label. 6. The Pavarotti "Turandot". 7. Scheherazade with Stokowski, a public performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1962. 8. Wagner's "Immolation Scene" with Birget Nilsson , ( and  Stoky) from the Philadelphia Orchestra Centennial set. 9. A Handel collection with my beloved voice teacher Richard Lewis on the Dutten label. 10. My first Beethoven 9th with Bruno Walter from the 50's. Now, having completed my list of ten, I shudder to think what I have left out!

ANOTHER WORLD!

You may remember my blog "Bad Blood"when I talked about the 100th Anniversary Concert of the Czech Philharmonic performing the Dvorak "New World Symphony".  I have just received a new Exton recording of the same piece with the same Orchestra, conducted by Vaclav Neumann, exactly 1 year earlier.  There are many differences between the two versions besides the conducting and playing. The acoustics of the Hall of Artists in Prague seems finer and more vibrant when empty as in this recording. The playing is of ANOTHER WORLD and here they are playing for a legendary Czech conductor who they obviously loved. The interpretation is more autumnal than Albrecht's, at least in the 1st movement, but the Largo is one of the finest I have heard and the 3rd and 4th movements are equally gripping. It's a shame Exton CDs (Canyon Classics) are not more available and inexpensive in the U.S. because they are well worth investigating.