Customer Reviews

The Art of Theodor Uppman: Radio Broadcasts, 1954 - 57

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was drawn to this CD because of the interesting and varied repertoire. Theodore Uppman was not familiar to me, so I had no idea it would be such a beautiful voice with such evenness through the registers, such clear diction, and such sincere and wholehearted involvement with the music. What a find!

The disc is a collection of digitally remastered radio broadcast performances from the Bell Telephone Hour between 1954 and 1957. Hence, the repertoire is intended to appeal to a wide audience, ranging from folk song arrangements ("Danny Boy", which one expects to be beautiful, and "Home on the Range", which surprised me by how good it can sound when sung by a real artist) through Stephen Foster and Alec Wilder to melodic French and Italian opera arias. I don't think there's a single bad performance on the CD, given that the artistic norms are those of the 50's, so "Tu lo sai", for instance, which is the only pre-19th-century piece in the collection, is sung in a romantic style that brings out the lovely melody rather than in the lighter style that we have come to expect since the early-music revival.

If you have any desire to hear rarities like Katherine Davis's setting of Rosemary Benet's "Nancy Hanks", Kurt Weill's setting of Whitman's "Beat! Beat! Drums!", or Celius Dougherty's setting of Carl Sandburg's "Colorado Trail" you absolutely cannot go wrong buying this CD. You will probably never hear them sung better. Among the more mainstream repertoire, I was particularly impressed by Strauss's "Zueignung", which is performed beautifully with attention to the text and phrasing, rather than as a chance to blow away an audience with a big sound (which is how I often hear it sung). Ironically, Jaroslav Kricka's "The Albatross", which was one of the unusual pieces I particularly wanted to hear on this CD, was good, but I didn't like it as well as the performance in French by Povla Frisch, which is the the first one I heard. It is worth noting that Tchaikovsky's "Pilgrim's Song" and Robert Franz's "Widmung" are also sung in English. This may have had as much to do with considerations of audience as of Uppman's linguistic capabilities, because the pieces he does sing in French, German and Italian show that he is comfortable singing in these languages.

I don't know what sort of recording technology was used for these live radio broadcasts originally, but digital remastering can only make up for so much. The sound quality is never annoying (i.e. there are no scratches, pops, or fuzzy spots), but the orchestra does have the sort of flattened, homogeneous sound that, for example, a 50's-era movie soundtrack may have. I didn't find this a hindrance to my enjoyment (in fact it gave it an appealing "period" flavor), but I suppose it might bother some people.

By coincidence, in the same shipment, I ordered the premiere performance of Britten's "Billy Budd" as a study aid. Uppman created the title role in this opera, and, having heard him sing the repertoire on this CD, I am now looking forward to hearing the Britten opera.

Theodor Uppman's distinguished career ought to have assured him a greater degree of name recognition among American singers than seems to have happened. A mainstay in the lyric baritone repertory at the Met for almost three decades, he is best known for the creation of the title role in Britten's Billy Budd.

This recording catches Uppman in his vocal prime, in opera and song repertory both familiar and unfamiliar, and reminds us that he had a well-schooled, evenly produced voice of considerable tonal beauty. He was also a sensitive interpreter within a certain range. The more familiar operatic excerpts, such as the arias from "Rigoletto" and "Carmen," reveal certain limitations in his ability to pour out refulgent sound that perhaps explain why he did not essay these roles onstage--in the Toreador Song in particular, Uppman indulges in some unlovely blustering, surprising given his concern with maintaining integrity of musical line elsewhere.

Nevertheless, this is a highly enjoyable album, with some unusual repertory. The sound is period mono and reproduces the voice vividly, the orchestral accompaniments acceptably.