San Francisco has long been an opera-mad city:
from 1875 to 1906, when it was destroyed by the famous earthquake
of that year, the Tivoli Opera House was San Francisco's principal
connection to the art form; its final days were fictionally
memorialized in the 1936 MGM film San Francisco starring Jeannette
McDonald, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy. In the years after 1906,
the touring San Carlo Opera Company came to San Francisco several
times, and its conductor Gaetano Merola returned to the City by
the Bay in 1922 to present three calling-card performances at the
Stanford football stadium. Although the performances lost a
considerable sum of money, Merola was heartened enough to present
and conduct another season of opera in 1923, beginning with La
bohème starring Queena Mario and Giovanni Martinelli.
The company's early performances took place in
the city's Civic Auditorium, but in 1932 the San Francisco Opera
moved to its permanent home at the War Memorial Opera House. Its
inaugural performance on October 15 was Tosca with Claudia Muzio,
Dino Borgioli, Alfredo Gandolfi and Louis d'Angelo, Merola again
conducting. Act I of this performance was broadcast and it
survives in adequate sound. Another early San Francisco partial
broadcast was the 1936 La Juive with Elizabeth Rethberg and
Martinelli, of which we have Act II.
Merola remained at the San Francisco Opera
until he died in 1953, at which point Kurt Herbert Adler took over
as general manager, a position he maintained until 1983. Even
after he stepped down from that post, Adler continued to conduct
occasionally.
Performances from San Francisco have been
sporadically broadcast over the years, and many more have survived
thanks to pirate recordists. This disc, volume one of three discs
Mike Richter has released so far, concentrates on the years 1966
to 1975, with an isolated 1982 performance of Dialogues des
Carmelites. All the performances here were recorded from the
audience by the late John Wegner (except the
Dialogues).
The index on the home page lists the operas in
alphabetical order by composer and then work. The two performances
of the single opera that is duplicated, Aida, are presented with
the earlier performance first. Suffice it to say that the operas
tend toward the familiar with a few nods toward what may have been
more adventuresome at the time, although all of the operas on the
disc are more or less standard repertory works nowadays. The
second and third San Francisco discs, the third in particular,
contain more relatively arcane works, but it is likely that these
operas will grow in familiarity over time as well.
One of the principal values of the disc is its
presentation of singers who were either less familiar to me in
general or less identified with the roles they sang than others at
the time. This trend commences with a 1973
Peter
Grimes under John Pritchard, the very first
opera on the disc. Grimes is taken by Jess Thomas rather than Jon
Vickers, who more or less owned the role by this time, having
first performed it in 1967. Thomas turns out to be quite a
credible interpreter of the title role, and his mad scene, still
ringing in my ears, is certainly the highlight of the performance,
and probably one of the highlights of the disc. Powerhouse singing
like this is bound to overshadow the rest of the cast, although
Ava June, a singer new to me, as Ellen and Geraint Evans as
Balstrode certainly score their proper points.
Jess Thomas was obviously a favorite in San
Francisco for, besides the Britten, he appears as Bacchus, both
Siegfrieds and in Das Lied von der Erde. For the most part, he is
a much better artist than I recall from hearing him at the time.
He sounds a bit strained at the beginning of the Mahler, and of
course he has trouble negotiating the little coloratura phrase,
'meinem frohen Mute' from Götterdämmerung, as do most
tenors; then again, I've always been spoiled by Svanholm's
rendition of that line from the 1956 Oslo broadcast with Flagstad.
But overall, these performances show Thomas to be a much better
tenor than his reputation indicates.
Then again, there are any number of good
tenors in these performances. Moving on to the next opera, a 1975
L'elisir
d'amore, we have José Carreras, just
four years after winning the Verdi Singing Competition in Parma,
showing us why he was already so highly regarded, singing with a
honeyed tone reminiscent of the young di Stefano. Judith Blegen is
a fetching Adina, and Ingvar Wixell, long a favorite of mine, is
an enjoyable Belcore. Carlo Felice Cillario conducts.
Another of the Three Tenors, Luciano
Pavarotti, is also well represented here. We hear him in a 1969
Bohème
with Dorothy Kirsten, just when his career was beginning to really
take off, and in a 1972 Lucia with Beverly Sills, by which time he
was headed toward superstar status. These are of course prime
Pavarotti performances, and he is well partnered by both of his
leading ladies: Kirsten, who had been singing professionally for
32 years by this time still projects youthfulness as Mimi, with
Wixell doing a turn as Marcello, the ever-reliable Ara Berberian
as Colline, and Margit Moser, a name hitherto unknown to me,a good
Musetta. And Sills, not too far into her unfortunately early
decline, still shines in one of her signature roles as Lucia,
although I missed the glass harmonica in the mad scene. Carmine
Coppola conducts the Puccini and Jesús López-Cobos
the Donizetti.
The next opera,
La
Gioconda, has long been one of my
favorites, and of course I was very excited to see that this 1967
performance under Giuseppe Patané features Leyla Gencer,
long known as the 'queen of the pirates', in the lead. She has the
technique for all aspects of this long and demanding role, and
while she does not quite rival Milanov's floated B-flat at the
phrase 'Madre! Enzo adorato! Ah! come t'amo!', she comes very
close indeed (Scotto, in the San Francisco telecast from 1979,
came even closer as I recall). I was surprised to hear Renato
Cioni, better known for such lyric roles as Edgardo, the Duke of
Mantua and Cavaradossi, making an impact as Enzo. The other
principals include Grace Bumbry, Maureen Forrester and the
omnipresent Berberian, while baritone Chester Ludgin, who had a
good career 'in the provinces', produces a scream at the end of
the opera that outdoes any other I have heard.
The list of starry tenors continues with
Giacomo Aragall, who I know best from his commercial recording of
Massenet's Esclarmonde with Sutherland, producing that
unmistakable sound in a 1975 performance of the same composer's
Werther,
one of those operas whose stature has certainly risen in the last
25 years. Heather Harper, who I mostly know from oratorios and
symphonic works, is a sympathetic Charlotte. Elyakum Shapirra is
the conductor.
One opera which has little use for tenors is
Poulenc's Dialogues des
Carmelites, sung in English in this 1982
performance under Henry Lewis, and it benefits here from Price's
beautifully sung Madame Lidoine and Régine Crespin's
authoritative Madame de Croissy. A young Carol Vaness and an older
Virginia Zeani, who retired that same year, round out the cast.
Moving from the tenors to the sopranos, we
have English soprano Amy Shuard as
Turandot
in this 1968 performance under Giuseppe Patané. While
certainly lesser known than Nilsson in this role, Shuard is far
from negligible as the Chinese princess, and it's easy to see why
her compatriots, among others, held her in such high esteem. These
others must include the San Franciscans, for she also sings the
lead in a 1966 Elektra
under Horst Stein and a 1969
Götterdämmerung
under Otmar Suitner. In the Turandot, she is partnered by the
powerful-voiced Lodovico Spiess as Calaf, and another singer
unknown to me, Jane Marsh, as Liu. Berberian and Wixell are back
as Timur and Ping respectively. Other than the Turandot, Shuard's
performances are plagued by recordist's cuts: the Elektra is
missing the opening scene with the maids, and the ending,
beginning shortly after Aegisth's death; Regina Resnik's entire
Klytämnestra, however, is thankfully complete. The
Götterdämmerung, on the other hand, has cuts within each
act, including the entire role of Alberich.
With the 1969
Cenerentola,
conducted by Charles Mackerras, we are on more familiar territory,
at least in terms of casting. Teresa Berganza, Pietro Bottazzo,
Renato Capecchi and Paolo Montarsolo were all well known in those
particular roles. But if the singers are familiar, not all of the
music is. Alidoro (Clifford Grant) sings 'Vasto teatro è il
mondo', a much less interesting and cathartic aria than the usual
'Là del ciel nell'arcano profondo', and Clorinda (Sheila
Marks) sings 'Sventurata! mi credea', just before the final scene.
While neither aria is particularly interesting, it's nice to get
to hear them - once, anyway.
The 1969
Ariadne auf
Naxos under Gunther Schuller is also in
English. Besides Jess Thomas, it features Ludmila Dvorakova, Janis
Martin and Colette Boky, who delivers a wonderful
'Grossmächtige Prinzessin'. She appeared to be headed for a
major career. Whatever happened to her?
Along with Elektra and Ariadne, we also get an
exciting 1970
Salome
starring the always-involved Anja Silja. The other singers include
Gerd Nienstedt, Sona Cervena, Ragnar Ulfung and - another new name
- Glade Peterson as Narraboth. Bohumil Gregor conducts.
As mentioned before, the only opera presented
twice here is
Aida,
one performance from 1960 under Francesco Molinari-Pradelli and
the other from 1969 under Jean Perisson. Both feature Jon Vickers
as Radames, and even if we don't get Vickers' Grimes on this disc,
his reaction in the 1969 Act III finale to discovering Amonasro's
plot certainly shows the influence of his having sung Britten's
hero. Rysanek's 1960 Aida reminds us that at one time she was
heading in the direction of being one of our leading Verdi
heroines, having recorded Lady Macbeth and Desdemona, and having
been originally listed for both the Reiner Messa da Requiem and
the Solti Aida. The 1960 Aida is the longer of the two in star
quality, with Irene Dalis, Robert Weede and Giorgio Tozzi as the
remaining leads, while the remaining leads in 1969 being, with the
exception of Berberian as Ramfis, new names to me: Ljiljana
Molnar-Talajic, Margarita Lilova and James Farrar.
Possibly the single most interesting
performance on the disc is Geraint Evans'
Falstaff
from 1970 under Bruno Bartoletti. No mere buffoon this knight,
Evans is formidable enough at the end of the first scene to give
genuine reason for Bardolfo and Pistola to sing 'Siam pentiti e
contriti' at the beginning of the second act. We also have a very
young Margaret Price as Nanetta, Stuart Burrows as Fenton, the
veteran Mary Costa as Alice, Lili Chookasian as Quickly, and a
couple of new names, Sylvia Anderson and Dan Richardson as Meg and
Ford.
Sylvia Anderson was not a new name to San
Francisco, however, having appeared the previous season as
Preziosilla in La forza del
destino. Carlo Bergonzi's stylish Don
Alvaro is a real plus, and Nancy Tatum brings an appropriately
darkish voice to Leonora. Giorgio Tozzi and Renato Capecchi were
certainly known entitites as Guardiano and Melitone, and Berberian
and Wixell return as the elder and younger di Vargas men. The
beginning of Act IV is missing, up to Carlo's 'Invano, Alvaro'.
Giuseppe Patané is once again on the podium.
Wagner was certainly well represented in San
Francisco during these years. Besides the aforementioned
Götterdämmerung with Shuard, we also get Walküre
and Siegfried, with different Brünnhildes in each case, and
Tristan und Isolde.
The 1970
Siegfried,
conducted, like the 1969 Götterdämmerung, by Otmar
Suitner, is the only one of the four Wagner operas on this disc to
have been captured complete. Jess Thomas is a strong-voiced
Siegfried who elicits laughter at his 'Das ist kein Mann', and the
Brünnhilde here is Berit Lindholm whose voice bears a genuine
resemblance to Nilsson's. Ragnar Ulfung and Thomas Stewart were
famous as Mime and the Wanderer, and Dan Richardson, five days
before his Ford also captured here, appears as Alberich. Fafner is
Berberian; they certainly kept him busy.
Of course, any
Tristan
with Nilsson and Windgassen, a pairing famous at least as far back
as 1957 Bayreuth, would be an event. The pair are basically
indistinguishable from their performances at 1966 Bayreuth
performance. Sadly, a good part of Act III is missing but we do
get some of the big moments for each singer, including Tristan's
triumph at seeing Isolde's ship and of course the Liebestod. Janis
Martin, William Dooley and Giorgio Tozzi round out the leads, and
Otmar Suitner once again conducts.
In the 1969
Die
Walküre under Leopold Ludwig from Los
Angeles - the only performance on this disc that doesn't take
place in the company's home town - the Brünnhilde is Nadezda
Kniplová, who alone among our three Brünnhildes here
recorded the Ring complete. This recording was of course the
Swarowsky rendition, which was on LP and has made it to CD. This
is the recording about which one critic wrote: "There are some
good voices and some experienced singers. Unfortunately, the good
voices don't belong to the experienced singers and vice versa." I
think it was the same critic who described Kniplová as
being from 'the agony school of singing', but she sounds less in
agony here than she does in the complete commercial set. Still, I
must admit I've always admired her primal scream. Crespin and
Vickers are of course famous from the Karajan set as the lovers,
and David Ward graduates from Hunding on the Leinsdorf set to
Wotan (that set also features Vickers' Siegmund, of course).
William Wildermann takes over as Hunding and Margarita Lilova, San
Francisco's 1969 Amneris, is Fricka.
The disc contains two bonuses: a 1970
Das Lied von der
Erde with Janet Baker and Jess Thomas under
Josef Krips, and a Leontyne
Price recital from the same year under
Seiji Ozawa. Her lower notes are stronger than usual, particularly
in 'Ritorna vincitor', her second selection of the evening.
The home page of the disc contains a brief
history of the San Francisco Opera. Most of the individual operas
feature reproductions of the printed programs, enabling the
listener to see who sings even the minor roles, and giving the
titles of the orchestral works that are omitted from the Price
recital.
Even though Richter describes the recordings
as being in 'modest-fidelity, monaural sound', the sound quality
is well above acceptable for a release of this type. I did notice
a couple of problems with pitch, once again not unusual in such
releases: the sound lurches upward in Act III of Turandot at
Timur's words 'Ah! Delitto orrendo!' and part or all of Act III of
the 1960 Aida sounds high to me also, with Robert Weede's voice
being particularly affected.
However, this is an important release. It's
certainly well worth the price of this disc just to hear Jess
Thomas as Peter Grimes, the young José Carreras as
Nemorino, Leontyne Price as Madame Lidoine or Amy Shuard in just
about anything.
San Francisco
Opera is a CD-ROM published by Mike Richter, AE201 US$
10.00.
Additional information and a source for
ordering can be found at Mike Richter www.mrichter.com/
