Back in the LP era, there were occasionally
records with such titles as '20 Tenors Sing 'Che gelida manina''
or '40 Tenors Sing 'Di quella pira'', or similar. Edward J Smith
was a special champion of such records, releasing them on the TAP
label or on his various private labels. Of course we are now in
the computer era rather than the LP era, and it was only a matter
of time before an enterprising CD-ROM producer decided to issue a
disc containing numerous performances of the same complete opera.
So here we have from House of Opera a single disc containing 18
performances of Puccini's perennial favorite, Tosca, released in
2000, the year of the opera's 100th birthday.
Tosca is a good choice for the first issue of
this kind for other reasons. Because it is relatively short,
fitting well within Shakespeare's prescribed 'two hours' traffic
of our stage', a number of performances of the opera can fit onto
one CD-ROM.
It's also an opera that lends itself to a
variety of interpretations. Singers find the opera irresistible.
Tosca herself is a real scenery-chewer and gets one of the most
dramatic and exciting deaths in opera, even if the actual death
does occur offstage. Sopranos of wildly differing vocal types have
tackled Puccini's heroine: how many other roles can you think of
that were in both Albanese's and Nilsson's repertoires? Tenors of
course have loved the role of Cavaradossi, with an aria in each of
the outer acts and a short aria complete with ringing high C (we
hope!) in the second. The proof of how popular Baron Scarpia is
among singers nowadays is that bass-baritones and even basses are
having a go at this baritone role, as several of the later
performances on this disc, beginning with that of Justino
Díaz in 1986, indicate. The roles themselves give the
singers so much to work with that even when one of the leads is
much more famous than the others (as with a number of performances
on this disc), the others still have their moments 'in the sun'.
For example, while Cavaradossi is generally considered the least
interesting dramatically of the three leads, an astute tenor can
play the third act as though he has already understood - from what
his naive lover has told him - that Scarpia is going to have the
last laugh, but he plays along with the deception to spare her
feelings. I have seen Domingo play the role this way; it is very
effective and adds much to the pathos of the final duet, given
that Cavaradossi only had a moment of happiness after 'E lucevan
le stelle' before having his hopes finally dashed.
The opera is enormously popular with
audiences. For example in America, it first appeared at the Met on
February 4, 1901, roughly 13 months after its world premiere, and
less than three months after the Met's first La bohème,
which had received its world premiere almost four years before
Tosca. Out of 102 seasons since then, the Met has presented the
opera in 81, and Tosca is scheduled to return, after an absence of
only one season, in January of 2002. The January 7, 1956 Met
Historic Broadcast recording of Mitropoulos's Tosca, with Tebaldi,
Tucker (who curiously never recorded the role) and Warren, was
sold out more quickly than any other recording when it was issued
in 1982.
House of Opera chose Tosca as its first CD-ROM
project after having gained access to a large collection of
recordings; it was suggested that it would be a good idea to
present a disc consisting entirely of one opera, possibly Tosca to
give the listener a chance to compare different artists of the
past and present interpreting the same roles. And since the
performances span a little over 45 years, roughly half of Tosca's
stage life, we get to see how some performance practices have
evolved: for example, in the earlier performances Tosca is more
likely to yell 'Muori! Muori! Muori!' (or in Rysanek's case,
'Stirb! Stirb! Stirb!'), whereas in the more recent performances,
Tosca is more likely to sing the line, though Ines Salazar, the
most recent Tosca on this disc, resorts to the old-fashioned rant.
All the performances here are live, which give
the listener a couple of advantages over studio recordings. For
one, singers are often much more committed in live performance,
and Tosca, an opera which is often over-the-top emotionally and
dramatically, benefits from having singers who are involved.
Another advantage is that live performances often give us chances
to hear singers who are not regulars in the studio. One of the
prime examples of this is Magda Olivero, basically unknown to many
listeners before Decca-London showcased her in its wonderful
recording of Fedora with del Monaco and Gobbi; Magda's star rose
so quickly after the release of that recording that when she made
her long-overdue Met debut in 1975 as Tosca, the only role she
would ever sing at the house, the evening became widely known as
'nut night at the Met'.
Following is a list of the contents of the
disc. These are identified in album order as they appear on the
disc when played on an MP3 player that can handle CD-ROMs, such as
the Philips Expanium or the Sonic Blue RioVolt. For the complete
performances, the venue and date of performance are given,
followed by the names of the three leads, in descending order of
vocal range, and the conductor:
Albums
1-18: 18 performances of 'Recondita armonia'
in the same sequence as the performances of the opera itself which
follow.
19-21: New York, 2/26/74; Galvany, Carreras,
Shinall, Morelli
64-66: La Scala, 7/18/97; Millo, Larin,
Guelfi, Bychkov
67-69: Torre del Lago, 8/1/97; Salazar, Cura,
Milnes, Guadagno (see below for more on the identity of this cast)
70-72: Bavarian Radio, 1953; Rysanek, Hopf,
Metternich, Kraus (in German)
73-90: 18 performances of 'Vissi d'arte' in
the same sequence as the preceding performances of the opera
itself.
I began putting this list together by
listening to the different sopranos and tenors and trying to guess
who they were. Even though I had a list of who the singers were,
this was sometimes difficult. Of course, certain ones were easy,
such as the two performances by Callas, while others I should have
recognized completely stumped me. Oddly enough I recognized di
Stefano in 1952 and 1964 but not in 1954. And Ines Salazar was a
real puzzle to me; she sounds more like Scotto than even
Scotto.
Of course, I'd much rather listen to this disc
over my stereo than over the computer, so here it helps to have an
MP3 player. Of the two MP3 players I've mentioned, the RioVolt has
a slightly easier time tracking the disc than does the Expanium,
but neither is perfect. The RioVolt, for example, cuts off the
last couple of notes of Act I of the Milanov/Corelli version,
causing it to slightly resemble a Mapleson cylinder, albeit with
much better sound.
A few of these performances have received wide
circulation on pirate recordings, most notably the Callas
performances. I have seen one or two of the others previously
available, including my all-time favorite Tosca performance, the
1957 London with the three huge and beautiful voices of Milanov,
Corelli and Gian Giacomo Guelfi. Milanov is the most hysterical of
the 18 Toscas preserved here (although Price runs a close second),
but paradoxically she is almost soothing in her 'Muori! Muori!
Muori!'
There are also several opportunities here to
compare the same singer at different stages of his or her career:
Callas in 1952 and 1964, Tebaldi in 1954 and 1964, di Stefano in
1952, 1954 and 1964 (he and Tebaldi share the latter two
performances), Taddei in 1954 and 1967. Hearing Callas near the
beginning of her career and near the end of it really caused me to
wonder why such a fuss was made of her so-called loss of voice.
Aside from a couple of top notes, her voice sounds quite compact
and I once again felt sadness that she gave up so early. While
Tebaldi is generally regarded as a less incisive singer than
Callas, one can hear how she found greater dramatic resources as
her career progressed and drew to a close; she always enjoyed
screaming as she threw herself over the parapet! Di Stefano's
voice certainly sounded more raw in 1964 than it did in the early
1950s but his ability to capture Cavaradossi's charm and
impulsivity remained unmatched.
In the most recent (1997) performance on the
disc, Sherrill Milnes is listed as Scarpia, however Milnes himself
says it was not him singing (though he did apparently appear in
part of the series) and the baritone may actually be Alain
Fondary. Milnes's distinctive timbre is not much in evidence here
and the Scarpia has much greater tonal accuracy than Milnes
displayed in his final seasons at the Met. This was disappointing:
I was really hoping it was Milnes! He was in the very first opera
I saw (Escamillo in a 1964 Carmen in Baltimore), and I was
initially encouraged that he was singing so well. (I'm still
looking forward to hearing him in the new recording of
Wolf-Ferrari's Sly with Carreras.) Also, there is the possibility
that the tenor in the same recording may not be Cura, despite the
protestations of the man who provided the original tape. House of
Opera's best guess is that it may be Cura in the third act only.
Overall the singing on these 18 performances
is on a high level, and there were few performances that I did not
enjoy. There were certainly small things to criticize, but I never
started to dread listening to 'yet another Tosca' as I feared I
might. I enjoyed hearing some singers who were new to me, such as
tenor Sergio di Amorim who more than holds his own against
Olivero, and getting reacquainted with some other singers, such as
tenor Giuseppe Gismondo whom I heard a couple of times in
Baltimore back in the late 1960s.
The index on the disc as seen on the computer
presents the 18 performances in chronological order, beginning
with the 1952 Mexico City one and ending with the 1997 Torre del
Lago. There are also separate indexes for the 18 performances of
'Recondita armonia' and the 18 'Vissi d'arte'. The home page of
the disc contains a brief introduction to the opera, mentioning
the original play La Tosca by Victorien Sardou - a vehicle for the
great Sarah Bernhardt. The disc also contains a synopsis of the
plot of the opera, probably unnecessary for most listeners, but
which gives approximate timings for the big moments of the opera.
There is also an Italian-only libretto which, based on a spot
check, appears to be quite accurate.
There are some flaws with the presentation of
the performances themselves. There are occasional gaps of silence
in quite a few of the performances. The sound just stops and then
picks up again later. This usually lasts for a few seconds,
sometimes longer. The longest hiatus, in Act I of the
Holleque/Pavarotti performance, lasts for just over 2 and a half
minutes. I suspect this problem could be fixed without too much
effort in future pressings of the CD-ROM.
There are also occasional problems with the
sound itself. Since these are pirate recordings, a number of them
sound as though they were recorded on little hand-held cassette
recorders in the house. Perhaps problems exist in the original
source material and can't be fixed. A couple of the more
troublesome performances are the Olivero/di Amorim which has a
rumble on the bass, and the Malfitano/Domingo which has the same
sort of faintly artificial sound as my digital answering machine.
The cleanest-sounding performance is probably the Millo/Larin.
Another oddity is the differing references to
the actual number of performances on the disc. The front of the
CD-ROM says there are 15, the House of Opera website says there
are 17, and the back liner and the disc itself indicate 18. The
latter is the correct figure. One definite plus was the warning on
the CD-ROM that attempting to play the disc on a regular CD player
could cause damage to the disc. While I have never been tempted to
try to play a CD-ROM on a regular CD player, I can see this is a
possibility, so I think the warning is valuable.
There is also a bonus audio CD which contains
13 performances of 'Recondita armonia' followed by 13 of 'Vissi
d'arte'. The choices appear to be based on the prominence of the
singer, and no singer appears in more than one performance. There
is nothing here that is not on the CD-ROM, but it does serve as a
nice summary of and appetite-whetter for the main disc.
This CD-ROM is not designed for those wanting a first recording of the opera so much as for those who are already acquainted with the work - and who are used to dealing with pirate recordings. I would like to see some of the problems associated with the disc - such as the gaps - corrected, but for the most part this is a very good first effort from the House of Opera, and I hope to see more horses coming from their stable in the future.
Lithograph by Hohenstein dating from early 1900s
The Tosca CD-ROM is published
and distributed by House of Opera (see below) for US$
14.95.
