Out come the stars, one by one or two by two and then six of them in a galaxy. Some have been in the firmament a long time, others are almost new. But all are there for one purpose (and cynical comments at this point are out of order): they come to pay tribute. “Twenty-five glorious years,” says Birgit Nilsson in that great booming voice of hers: “a fantastic era for the Metropolitan Opera House.” It has been the era of the maestro who in 1980 conducted her in his first Elektra – and it was she, an old hand in the role, who did the learning. “Dear Jimmy.”
It must have been a great party, and I don’t like to come to the inevitable ‘but’ – but the golden rule about great parties is “Don’t take pictures, don’t make recordings, keep the memory”. Perhaps that is a little too sweeping, and a little too severe in reference to this particular recording. There are good things in it, such as Renee Fleming coming on to really good form for “Depuis le jour” round about “Au jardin de mon coeur” and Ruth Ann Swenson daring to sing softly (and to lovely effect) in the middle of Juliette’s waltz-song. But no single item, as recorded, seemed to me to amount to great singing and, delightful as it must have been on the occasion to greet some of the old guard, it cannot truly be said that the resulting record shows them as one would wish them to be remembered.
It may be that the nature of the recording has something to do with this. I found many of the voices (for instance, Fleming’s and Terfel’s, both of which are fresh as live experiences in my mind) are presented in a way that is distinctly unflattering to their tone quality. On the whole I gained more enjoyment from the orchestral playing than from the singing, and from the speaking voice more than either. The climax of the evening, as recaptured here, is Nilsson’s speech. Addressing her “dear maestro”, she tells of the traditional Swedish way of honouring such occasions, and adds: “But since I am a daughter of the Vikings, I will do it my way”. Then, with no more than a second’s pause and no more than a semitone’s adjustment of pitch, she gives vent to a mighty “Hojotoho!”, and her top B flat brings down the house.'