Francesca da Rimini, whose music fuses post-Puccinian Italian lyricism with voluptuously rich orchestral colour owing something to Wagner, rather more to Strauss and to Zandonai’s French contemporaries, is surely ripe for rediscovery (I say rediscovery – the work is still intermittently in the Italian repertory and that of the New York Met – because it is an extreme rarity elsewhere, and this is currently the only available CD recording). Those who are familiar with the work will know that what stands in the way of more frequent performance is the peculiarly demanding title-role, associated in the past with such formidable singing actresses as Magda Olivero, Leyla Gencer and Raina Kabaivanska. Is Elena Filipova up to those demands and those comparisons? The answer is an emphatic ‘Yes’; indeed on the basis of this performance I am astonished that this appears to be her first operatic recording. The voice is a forceful spinto soprano, yet capable of caressing softness and seamless line; she responds to words and to the ripe richness of Zandonai’s style with quite beautiful phrasing. As Paolo, Frederic Kalt is a robust tenor with a burnished gleam that only occasionally takes on a harsh edge; he too is stylish, but would be twice as impressive if he occasionally sang quietly. Of the other principals Rouillon, as Francesca’s unfortunate husband, is a fine, grave baritone; as the evil Malatestino Riegel is vividly characterful if rather too often over the top if not half-way down the other side.
The problem with Francesca da Rimini is that of the two fated, tragic lovers Paolo does not appear onstage until the Second of the four acts, and that he and Francesca do not have an extended scene together until the Third. Zandonai’s richness of palette and his curiously but attractively anachronistic evocations of the past (I might inadequately describe him as a ‘pre-Raphaelite’ composer if the Italians had not come up with a much better term: stile Liberty) are quite enough to keep one absorbed until doomed love bursts into flame, but this live recording is kind neither to the singers (who are often backwardly placed, their words unclear) nor to the orchestra: Zandonai’s luscious textures are sometimes dense, his colours occasionally coarsened. But the performance is admirably paced and controlled: the drama of the piece is very strongly projected. Though not as voluptuous as any performance of this opera should be it has sufficient quality to swell the number of those longing to see it on stage; and in Filipova it has a star soprano fully worthy of its central role.'