Rarely performed Puccini. Ludicrous story. Not that ludicrous matters if the music is good enough. So, the quest of this blogpost is to help me decide what I think of this opera. I have found that the best way to get to know and like an opera is to actually see it, whether live or on video. I think that makes me weird, but rational - after all, most of the well-known operas were written for the stage. This was written after the invention of sound recording, and at the time that motion pictures emerged but I would be surprised if even Puccini was quite so tech-savvy in the 1880s as to write with electronic reproduction in mind, and would probably have been very surprised to know that some woman on teh internets has gone seeking an audio/visual reproduction of his second, commercially failed, opera whilst sitting in her dressing gown...! There is a DVD available. Perhaps Puccini would not be surprised at the statement "Please be aware it may be several months before despatch." And a search of Operabase reveals no live performances from 2005 -2009. Unless someone somewhere is secretly planning a production for the 150th anniversary of Puccini's 1858 birth, I suspect we will have to wait until 2024 for a death-centenary special.
So I'm stuck with this CD, bought in the summer, and listened to straight through a couple of times, before being loaded onto my mp3 player and cropping up from time-to-time on random.
So what do I think of it? I have to say it hasn't exactly leaped out and grabbed me by the throat as being overwhelming. There are five or six numbers in Tosca alone that are more memorable than this. That having been said, it is very pleasant to listen to and worth taking the time to concentrate and listen actively. And were it to come to an opera house near me, I wouldn't hesitate to book up to see it. I don't think I would travel, though, however rare the performance. In my view there are plenty of less-deserving rarities being performed in various locations. It has some orchestral passages that excellent, tuneful and stirring.
So, this disc. Firstly, it's a pity that Plácido left it to 2005 to record this. He sounds gorgeous much of the time, and this should certainly be in the collection of any semi-serious Plácido fan. I think there is evident strain in some of the higher notes, which wouldn't have been there thirty or twenty years ago. Conversely, I do like the mature steel of a Wagnerian (or a baritenor) lower in the range.
Not having any other versions, nor having a score from which to read I can't make any insightful comments, except for relating the evidence of my ears. There is nothing that strikes me as unpleasant in it, which is not intended to sound as faint praise. When listening to a recording of a repertory standard, especially by singers with much experience in the role, you are persuaded, correctly or not, that they are bringing considerable interpretation. I would imagine that for this they just learnt the roles sufficiently to sing from the scores.
I suppose I could go through and do a number-by-number 'live blog' but that would be tedious. Tedious to those who know the work, because they can form their own views, and to those who don't, because it means nothing. And in either case, I would end up saying 'and then the strings introduce a passage of mezzo-piano choral singing' or else 'I like the way the brass play high, the cymbals clash, and the sopranos soar in a stirringly triumphant passage, before the volume and tempo reduces to a reflective, lyrical, quasi-religious outpouring ("Del signor la pupilla" as it happens). Oh I do like the way the soprano interjects into that'.
So I shall just say, click the Amazon link above, listen to the extracts and then buy*
In conclusion, I would say that the more I listen to this, the more I like it, and I think it deserves more performances than it currently gets.
Positive review; mixed review (I think the latter reviewer has a bee in his bonnet about Pláci).
Unless I acquire in the next few days a copy of Leoncavallo's Edipo Re, Cavalli's Egisto, Dessau's Einstein, Glass's Einstein on the Beach, John's The Eight Wonder, or Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers, none of which (except the Glass) I have ever heard of, we will soon be looking at Elektra (Strauss).
** If you buy after following my link, I shall get 60p (or about 1 USD) with which to subsidise the hosting costs for mmofm (insert cheeky smiley here...)
