If only he hadn't sung Ferrando...
Thu, Sep 2 2010, 8:22AM
There are several [operas] where I think a recording could have been improved if so-and-so had been in the cast and many where artists were cast in roles where they were unsuited. Maybe that's an item for a different discussion. Would you like to start it?
Thanks Caballe. I take up the challenge and start the thread with these offerings for discussion:
1. I have never really rated Nicolai Gedda's Mozart and his lack of grace coupled with a rough tone nearly ruin the Colin Davis Cosi Fan Tutte where Montserrat Caballe, Janet Baker and Ileana Cotrubas are an ideal trio of ladies. Perhaps Ryland Davies from the contemporaneous Solti Decca recording could have stepped in?
2. Irmgard Seefried was lovely in some Mozart roles early on in her career but she recorded Fiordiligi too late in her career and sends the Eugen Jochum Cosi Fan Tutte out of kilter with her pinched high notes and problems with breath control. What a pity Gundula Janowitz (also with DG at the time) couldn't have put her fabulous Fiordiligi on record under studio conditions rather than her cut live recording with Bohm.
3. Bohm's Magic Flute is wonderful but dragged down by Evelyn Lear as Pamina. I feel her pain in Ach ich fuhls but for all the wrong reasons.
4. Riccardo Chailly's fizzingly good Barbiere Di Siviglia with Marilyn Horne and Leo Nucci takes liberties with the music and fulfills the Rossini adage on hearing Una Voce Poco Fa sung with embellishments "that's lovely who composed it?". BUT is totally let down by the dreadful Paolo Barbacini who for good reason has not been prolific on records.
Any more?
Fri, Sep 3 2010, 11:47AM
#2
RE: If only he hadn't sung Ferrando...
Gosh dbennett you really have been thinking about this! I offer a few more:
If Aldo Protti had been replaced by Ettore Bastianini or Giuseppe Taddei in Karajan's Otello we'd have had a brilliant recording of the opera.
If Martina Arroyo had been replaced by Montserrat Caballe or Joan Sutherland in the Levine I Vespri Siciliani we'd have had a singer who could manage the coloratura.
If Joan Sutherland had sung Adalgisa and Montserrat Caballe had sung Norma we'd have had a remake worth doing under Richard Bonynge.
My dream opera, which was never recorded, would have been I Vespri Siciliani with Susan Dunn, Chris Merritt and Giorgio Zancanaro with Paata Burchuladze under Riccardo Muti but as they say - that's another posting.
Fri, Sep 3 2010, 11:02AM
#3
RE: If only he hadn't sung Ferrando...
A couple of examples spring to mind: if only Hans Beirer had not been cast in the title role of Karajan's live Tannhaüser on DG (how tiring his timbre is!)!
If only a female singer had been cast instead of Ivan Rebroff in C. Kleiber's Fledermaus!
The otherwise gripping live recording of Elektra by Mitropoulos at Salzburg festival is marred by the presence of Kurt Böhme as Orestes. Who on Earth chose him - his ogre voice is fine for Fafner in Böhm's Ring, but what does it have to do with Orestes?
If only Masur's recording of Strauss' Vier letzte Lieder had been sung by someone else than Jessye Norman! (Then Philips would have sold much fewer copies)
If only Klemperer's studio recording of Mahler 2 had better singers - Rössel-Majdan's voice is too 'ordinary' to sing the Urlicht, and Schwarzkopf has been in better voice elsewhere.
Best regards
Wolfram
Sat, Sep 4 2010, 12:37PM
#4
RE: If only he hadn't sung Ferrando...
Interesting what you said about Bastianini and the 1961 Otello recording - Bastianini was originally chosen for the role but I believe that he had not time to learn the part sufficiently and was replaced at a late stage by Protti who had been singing Iago a lot in Vienna. Taddei is a fantastic Iago on a Cetra Otello from 1955 alongside Carlos Guichandut as Otello and Cesy Broggini as Desdemona, conducted by Franco Capuana.
Just think of the major Otello recordings from the time Taddei was in his prime - Decca's Stereo Erede set and Karajan sets, RCA Victors set with Vickers, Rysanek and Gobbi conducted by Serafin, later on the Barbirolli recording with McCracken, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gwynth Jones. Taddei was a major artist and continued to sing well right through the 70s and 80s. I cannot help but feel that he was superior to all the other Iago's mentioned. The same with his Rigoletto and yet we do not have a stereo studio recording of him in either of these roles!!
Remembering that Taddei was singing on record until at least 1992 - brilliantly I might add - on the James Levine Manon Lescaut you realise that there were so many missed opportunities in the 40 years in-between to rerecord Taddei in some of these roles... I find that annoying and quite saddening.
David
Wed, Sep 8 2010, 9:34PM
#5
RE: If only he hadn't sung Ferrando...
Gosh dbennett you really have been thinking about this! I offer a few more:
If Aldo Protti had been replaced by Ettore Bastianini or Giuseppe Taddei in Karajan's Otello we'd have had a brilliant recording of the opera.
If Martina Arroyo had been replaced by Montserrat Caballe or Joan Sutherland in the Levine I Vespri Siciliani we'd have had a singer who could manage the coloratura.
If Joan Sutherland had sung Adalgisa and Montserrat Caballe had sung Norma we'd have had a remake worth doing under Richard Bonynge.
My dream opera, which was never recorded, would have been I Vespri Siciliani with Susan Dunn, Chris Merritt and Giorgio Zancanaro with Paata Burchuladze under Riccardo Muti but as they say - that's another posting.
Wed, Sep 8 2010, 10:25PM
#6
RE: If only he hadn't sung Ferrando...
Seems post was lost after saving. This frequently happens. Thank-you martin_opera for beginning this. Much of what I have read I agree with. Re the Bonynge Norma. I wish Caballe had broken her rule of recording one of her roles just once in this instance as she could have improved on her recorded Norma. Having said that, the recording would not have been made as Mr Bonynge would not have countenaced that. Having said that at least Sutherland's diction is greater improved than on her earlier version. I would have prefered either Freni, who sang a good soprano Adalgisa with Renata Scotto on a duet disc of various extracts for Decca or Anges Baltsa in the role opposite a retake of a Caballe Norma.
While on the subject of Norma I wish the roles had been reversed on Levine's first Norma where Verrett's Adalgisa is surely more up to the role than Sill's prettily vocalised, though hardly commanding attempt at the title role. Hearing Verrett's assumption on an admittedly poor sounding live version she had the goods for it, maybe harking back to the original casting of the work where I understand the role's creator, Guiditta Pasta, was more mezzo than soprano.
I hope people will continue to post their "if only's" but acknowledge both the positive and the negative. We can't change what has been recorded for posterity but we can think of many recordings which could have been finer if the casting had been better. For instance, Callas as Lady Macbeth in Leinsdorf's recording, Callas and Corelli on either the HMV or DG Don Carlos, Cappucilli on Davis's Tosca, Scotto and Kraus recorded a decade sooner in Traviata. The list goes on.....
Thanks for posting.
Interesting post! Here are some ideas - this notion of 'swapping' singers from different recordings goes through my head all the time when listening!
1. Franco Corelli instead of Eugenio Fernandi on the Callas/ Serafin Studio Turandot. In fact if you could have swapped Fernandi with Mario Filippeschi who was not very successful in Norma (1954) that would have improved both recordings - Fernandi would have perhas been quite an effective as Pollione. Having said that I would have liked to have heard Giuseppe di Stefano as Calaf c. 1957 as by 1961 when we have a recording with Nilsson the voice is very spread on high notes. Given how successful Mirto Picchi was in the 1952 Norma at Covent Garden I think that Di Stefano would have been good as a lyrical Pollione- it certainly cannot be much more difficult that Arturo in I Puritani.
2. Bechi/ Taddei/ Cappuccilli/ Bastianini / Merrill / Gobbi etc instead of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in Italian roles such as Rigoletto, Germonte etc
3. Di Stefano, Bergonzi, Tucker instead of Fillipeschi in the Santini Don Carlo from 1954. Callas instead of Stella would have been wonderful. Would Mario del Monaco have been good in the title role? Barbieri, Simionato, Stignani instead of Nicolai - go on pick a card any card! Sometimes wonder what Legge was thinking...
4. Martinucci/ Aragall could split any of the roles Jose Carreras took on after the early 1980s when his voice (at least as recorded) started to sound artificially dark and strained I think. It says just how heavy some of the roles were when such a different voice as Giuseppe Giacomini's dark baritonal and dramatic tenor voice would have been better suited vocally to them - just think of that awful Samson et Dalila with Baltsa. Giacomini in Otello instead of Domingo in the 1980s with Ricciarelli would have been good - after all Domingo has recorded the role so often he could spare one outing!
5. Bjorling / Corelli / Tagliavini instead of Gedda in Callas' Madama Butterfly (simply not Italianate enough). Had Callas recorded the role with the Di Stefano/Gobbi/Serafin team from the earlier De Los Angeles recording that would have been excellent.
6. Tebaldi instead of Schwarzkopf on the Callas Turandot! De Los Angeles would have been astounding as well.
7. Taddei instead of Gobbi on many of the EMI recordings just due to having a naturally more beautiful and full voice - I especially wish that Taddei had recorded Falstaff with the team conducted by Karajan in 1956. That said on that recording I would also have changed Schwarzkopf for De Los Angeles, Joan Sutherland, or even Callas remembering how good she was with Turco in Italia and Barbiere di Siviglia
8. I wish Gigli had recorded Elisir d'amore in the studio. If the recording with Gobbi and Carioso had been 1951-1952 Gigli would still have owned the part. Tagliavini instead of Monti on the 1957 Sonnambula with Callas would have been great as well - the best of the Cetra recording with the best of the EMI recording. And by the way - Walter Legge record the *?!£%^* thing in STEREO!!
9. I wish that the team of Carteri, Taddei and Panerai on the Serafin Elisir could have borrowed Di Stefano from the Decca set. Not mad about Gueden's Adina.
10. Taddei or Bechi instead of Tagliabue on Callas' Forza del Destino (simply sounded too old). Wish that Bechi could have appeared in more studio operas even in the early 1950s such as Lucia di Lammermoor instead of Gobbi or instead of Panerai as Alfio on Callas' Cavalleria Rusticana. What a brilliant voice!
Goodness I have so many ideas - too little time :)
Thanks for this interesting post - I hope my suggestions might prompt some other ideas
David