Customer Reviews

Leoncavallo: I Pagliacci / Muti, Tucker, Lorenzi

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

 

 

SOURCE: Live performance from the Florence May Festival, May 1971.

SOUND: Opera d'Oro, as usual, is economical with details, but my guess is that this is a recorded broadcast, since the voices and orchestra are in even balance while the audience is fairly distant. The mono sound is hardly up to digital studio standards, but good enough to afford pleasure to anyone willing to listen sympathetically.

CAST: Canio, the chief player of a ragtag touring company - Richard Tucker (dramatic tenor); Nedda, the leading lady and a wife who strongly feels the urge to soar away - Mietta Sighele (soprano); Canio, a professional buffoon with a dark and cynical heart - Kari Nurmela (baritone); Beppe, the light-hearted harlequin who actually exhibits some common sense - Ermanno Lorenzi (lyric tenor); Sylvio, the local lover boy making time with Nedda - Walter Alberti (baritone); Due Contadini, two honored ticket buyers/two local yokels - Ottavio Taddei and Mario Frosini. CONDUCTOR: Ricardo Muti with the Florence May Festival Orchestra and Chorus.

DOCUMENTATION: No libretto. Brief history of the opera, in which it is insisted that the correct name of the opera is "Pagliacci," not "I Pagliacci." Short summary of the plot. Nothing on the performers or performance. The track list identifies the main singer(s) on each track but omits timings.

COMMENTARY: "Pagliacci" was the second big hit of the verismo style and confirmed that the earlier "Cavalleria Rusticana" had not been just a fluke. "Pagliacci" was, in fact, such a hit that it was not long before its creator, librettist/composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo, was hauled into court to defend himself against a charge of plagiary. At the trial, Leoncavallo swore that he had not stolen anything. His story was based on boyhood memories of a case that had actually appeared in the court of his father, a judge. The case was decided in his favor.

"Pagliacci" is one of the core works of the standard operatic repertory and surely one of the most often performed. As "Pagliacci" is only about 75 minutes long, it is commonly yoked together in performance with "Cavalleria Rusticana" as "Cav and Pag," a combination that is only half-jokingly known as "the unholy twins." It is widely regarded (although not by me) as the better of the two.

This is a pretty good live performance under the baton of the young Muti, then still a conductor who held out hopes of unlimited potential. "Pagliacci" is not really a conductor's opera. The score explicitly lays out what the opera is about -- overblown, dangerous passion among ordinary people -- and specifies how to achieve the intended effects. Subtle, it isn't. In this performance I can't hear the things that so often make recordings by the more mature Muti such a quirky experience.

The players in Canio's commedia dell'arte company are consistently strong. Sighele as Nedda had a fuller voice than might have been anticipated. She had the potential for a bigger career than she seems actually to have had. Nurmela as Tonio is good, too, although he hangs right out there on the raggedest of edges for the high note in "Si puo? Si puo?" Lorenzi and Alberti as Beppe and Silvio do what must be done for their parts in a satisfactory manner.

All that is beside the point. The reason, the only reason to purchase this set, is to hear Richard Tucker in live performance. Let me be clear on this point: I am a stone Tucker fan (as I am of Gigli, Tagliavini, Schipa, Caniglia, Pagliughi, Flagstad ....) and so were the members of the May Festival audience. I hear Tucker and I find all kinds of faults: pronunciation, attack, vocal production, occasionally pitch -- you name it. None of that makes any difference. When Tucker winds up for the big ones, he always hits them out of the park. Wow! Listen to the audience at the end of "Vesti la giuba." When Tucker finishes singing, the less sophisticated parts of the audience offer loud cheers, but too early. They cover the longish orchestral passage that ends the first act. When the music comes to a proper close, the knowing part of the audience explodes into an even larger ovation. That's what happens when a true star is on stage!

Four stars for a generally good, live, mono performance from the 1970s, but five stars for Tucker being Tucker.