Customer Reviews

Verdi: Ernani

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an old recording from the early to mid 60's of Verdi's obscure and early opera Ernani based on the Victor Hugo play and novel. Ernani is a very contrived, melodramatic and operatically unsatisfying story but at this stage in his life Verdi was an innovative and experimental composer trying to branch out of the bel canto tradition. However, this is very much influenced by bel canto. A lot of beautiful singing. Stars Leontyne Price, the reigning Verdi soprano of her day, and Italian tenor Carlo Bergonzi. They try to breathe life into their otherwise one-dimensional parts. They offer beautiful tone, romance and elegance to their parts. They sang Ernani at the Met in the 60's and were usually terrific in their performances. It seems to me that often Leontyne Price repeated her "Leonora" persona (from Trovatore especially). The heroine in this opera is a noblewoman who falls for a rogue who kidnaps her but the bandit has a heart and kills himself for love of her and for the respect to her marriage to another man. Leontyne sings with youthful ardor, rich melody, nice chest register and gleaming top. This is her younger voice and you can never find true fault with it. It was her later work that was marred with some vocal problems. Bergonzi is a superb Ernani, with robust and melodic grace even if he lacks in some passion. The rest of the singers are superb. Ezio Flagello was another Met star that sold out as was baritone Mario Serena. A great Ernani but some would say it's not the best. I disagree. I think it's the best sung version. Other versions include Placido Domingo and Mirella Freni and that one is also very good and modern in sound.

NO CAVEATS, COMMENTS OR COMPARISONS: THE BEST ERNANI ON RECORDS, PERIOD. WHY? BECAUSE PRICE AND BERGONZI HAVE THE BEST VERDIAN TECHNIQUE OF ALL, AND PRODUCE TRUE BEL CANTO, BEAUTIFUL SINGING. AND BESIDES, THEIR VOICES, LIKE CALLAS, GENCER, VICKERS, GOBBI, BUMBRY, DE LOS ANGELES, DOMINGO, ARE SIMPLY ADDICTIVE. THIS IS ONE OF THE RECORDS I'D TAKE WITH ME TO A DESERTED ISLAND (PROVIDED THERE IS WHERE TO PLAY IT).

I don't want to talk about Bergonzi and Price - they are solid and always reliable (though Bergonzi's voice may not be as emotional or high-pitched as, for example, Giuseppe Di Stefano's...). Their supporters are great, although you can't find any so called "great names" on the label: Sereni's voice is in fine shape, and he manages his Carlo with elegant brilliance. Ezio Flagello definitly has the vocal power for such an dramatic role like the Don Silva - and he makes use of it in an impressing way! Schippers's conducting is compelling and vivid - early Verdi must be interpreted like this! Recently, a series of great live performances took place at the Vienna State Opera (cast: Shicoff, Guleghina, Alavarez, Scandiuzzi). I was lucky to see several of those - so I can honestly say: this recording is equal to them, if not even better!

SOURCE:
Studio production recorded in July 1967 at the RCA Italiana Studios in Rome and originally issued in Lp format in 1968.

SOUND:
Good 1960s analogue stereo. I assume that the digital remastering took place in mid-1990 although, true to form, RCA doesn't bother to say so.

CAST:
Don Juan of Aragon, better known as Ernani, a bandit chief - Carlo Bergonzi (tenor)
Donna Elvira, betrothed to her uncle but in love with Ernani - Leontyne Price (soprano)
Don Carlo, i.e., Charles I of Spain and Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire - Mario Sereni (baritone)
Don Ruy Gomez de Silva, a grandee of Spain, uncle of Donna Elvira and her betrothed - Ezio Flagello (bass)
Don Riccardo, an esquire of the king - Fernando Iacopucci (tenor)
Iago, a squire of Silva - Hartje Mueller (bass)
Giovanna, Elvira's nurse - Julia Hamari (mezzo-soprano)

CONDUCTOR:
Thomas Schippers with the RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra and Chorus.

DOCUMENTATION:
Libretto in Italian and English. Brief summary of the plot. Nothing on the performers and little more on the history of the opera. Track list with timings.

FORMAT:
Disk 1 - Prelude, track 1; Act I, tracks 2-12; Act II, tracks 13-16; 67:42.
Disk 2 - Act II (continued), tracks 1-4; Act III, tracks 5-9; Act IV, tracks 10-11; 62:25.

TEXT:
When this recording was made in 1967, it was offered as complete. Subsequent scholarship has turned up a couple of short-lived additions made by Verdi at the request of particular performers for specific performances, most noticeably a piece of vocal display for the tenor near the end of the opera. Except for completists who simply must have everything, nothing significant is lost by their omission here. (If you absolutely crave the additional material, it is incorporated into the Bonynge-Pavarotti-Sutherland recording.)

COMMENTARY:
Let me be absolutely clear on one thing from the very beginning, the story of "Ernani" is idiotic. For people in their right minds--a phrase that only vaguely relates to opera fans--the pleasures to be drawn from "Ernani" are predominantly musical ones. And it so happens that those musical pleasures are very substantial, indeed. You'll not find a subtle bar in the piece, nor a hint of an insight, but there is an almost endless flow of glorious, passionate, Italianate singing.

The risible plot involves a Spanish hidalgo's exaggerated sense of honor. That this super-honorable aristocrat has fallen on hard times and taken up the profession of bandit chief is perfectly consistent with the rest of the cockeyed plot. For reasons too lengthy and far too silly to go into here, the hidalgo has sworn to assassinate someone or die by his own hand when he hears the sound of a horn. Well, before you can say Jack Robinson, Ernani, for he is that honorable hidalgo, has not only neglected to assassinate anybody, he has made his peace with the intended victim, and he is about to marry the girl of his dreams. Before the marriage can be performed, however, Ernani's old co-conspirator and hated rival in love (don't ask) turns up and toots his horn. The honorable Ernani understands: it is his fatal destiny. He closes his ears to all pleas and forthwith fatally stabs himself, all to the considerable discomfort and dismay of his bride-to-be.

Despite all that, this fifth opera of Verdi's debuted at La Fenice in Venice on March 9, 1844 and became a tremendous, rip-roaring hit. Even now, with the right singers, "Ernani" can convert a jaded audience who collectively regard "Einstein on the Beach" and "St Francois d'Asisse" as the highest flowerings of operatic art into applauding, cheering, foot-stomping fans, shouting bravi enthusiastically as any hired claque.

With Bergonzi, Price, Sereni and Flagello, RCA assembled a cast from 1967's A-list of singers. For all intents and purposes, though, "Ernani" rises and falls on the merits of the tenor and the soprano. Among the stereo "Ernani's" buyers must choose between Schippers-Bergonzi-Price, Bonynge-Pavarotti-Sutherland (studio) and Muti-Domingo-Freni (live). The Pavarotti-Sutherland version was not issued until long after it was recorded. It has always been iffy--although it has accumulated some loyal fans.

Some regard Bergonzi, a polished and elegant singer, as ill-suited for the manifestly unpolished and inelegant role of Ernani. On the other hand, a reviewer in the good, grey English magazine The Gramophone stated, "Bergonzi is decidedly Domingo's superior here. His singing is, to my mind, the principal recommendation of the set".

Of Price, that reviewer wrote, "Leontyne Price has moments when she sounds (as she could be) like the greatest Verdi soprano of the age (the phrases where, forlornly, she asks Ernani for a smile, ''il riso del tuo volto'', provide an example); she is at least Mirella Freni's equal".

Maybe, maybe, I can't tell. I am unable to hear Price with any objectivity, because on the two occasions I saw her perform on stage she offered the most blatant displays of self-centered, ungenerous unprofessionalism that it has ever been my misfortune to see. (And, yes, I HAVE seen Pavarotti.) Now, it may be that I caught the only two blemishes on an otherwise unstained career, but I don't think so.

All that aside, I am still willing to take this performance as the best "Ernani" available in stereo, so, five stars.

A SUGGESTED ALTERNATIVE:
However, there is a better performance available on CD, in fact, a much better performance. It is an old recording, available from Opera d'Oro and elsewhere, in not much better than mediocre mono sound. It is conducted by Mitropoulos with a cast consisting of Del Monaco, Cerquetti, Bastianini and Christoff. Each of these is not only better in "Ernani," but much better than his or her rivals. Mitropoulos was a great conductor, but one who was shamefully under-recorded in opera. Neither Muti nor Schippers is in his league. The role of Ernani suited Del Monaco even better than his trademark Otello, for it translated all his faults into strengths. Cerquetti, whose stage career was cut tragically short, was a born Verdian and a true rival to Tebaldi. Bastianini and Christoff blow away the competition on all other "Ernanis."

Here is The Gramophone again: "Each of the four principals not only has a voice of essential power but each has Verdian style as part of their interpretative make-up. Furthermore they are led by the legendary Mitropoulos.... He easily encompasses the cut and thrust, the rudimentary fervour of one of Verdi's earliest successes, combining at once rude rhythms with lyrical breadth of phrase in supporting his admirable cast and firmly controlling the many ensembles, and his orchestra responds eagerly to his positive beat."

Yeah, believe it!

I have noticed that many of the editorial reviews for the recordings of Leontyne Price are "mixed or equivocal" in nature. I have not observed this phenomenon in connection with reviews for any of her great contemporaries (Sutherland or Nilsson).

What gives Amazon? This recording is so much better than any currently available alternative in regards to sound, musical accuracy, and completeness that it is nearly self-recommending. Leontyne Price not comparable in Verdian style to Bergonze - on what basis does Amazon's reviewer make this claim. Because to me it seems offensive. And the off-handed dismissal of Domingo (without any explanation) is pretty insulting as well.

I am a strong admirer of the opera recordings produced for RCA in the 1950s and 60s by the late Richard Mohr, with Lewis Layton as his engineer, and this Ernani is one of my favourites. The stereo sound is excellent on my equipment - the ensembles and louder choral sections congeal a bit, but that was how things were in 1967. However, the solo voices are caught superbly and what voices! Bergonzi and Price were at the peaks of their careers, and both offer masterclasses in great Verdi singing. The underrated Mario Sereni gives what for me is his finest recorded performance. Maestro Schippers keeps eveything moving and shows consideration or the superb cast he was given to work with. Yes a great Verdi recording!

Ernani is actually one of Verdi's most abundantly tuneful operas. So why does it remain `second-league' Verdi? Well, part of the problem, I suspect, is that it lacks subtlety. Another problem is the weakness of the libretto (and the two are obviously related). What we have is a high-romantic drama with a silly plot, and it is striking how much more effective, urgent and moving Victor Hugo's drama is in its original guise than in Verdi's and his librettist's treatment of it. As for the lack of subtlety in the music, it is not that Verdi's score really lacks the necessary verve and variety - Ernani's final solo is for instance poignantly moving - it is more that the music doesn't quite convincingly reflect the pacing of the drama and development of the characters (well, I guess I should say the pacing of Hugo's drama; the opera's story isn't really a suitable vehicle for any kind of pacing). Still, it is a really enjoyable and inventive work on a purely musical level, containing several outstanding numbers.

This studio recording was made in 1967 but the sound quality, though perfectly clear and with a decent perspective, is bright and dry and sounds, in fact, a little older. It certainly favors the soloists, which isn't necessarily objectionable, but also uses stereophonic effects to move the characters around in the sound picture, and the attempt is not entirely convincing. As for the performances themselves, Schippers takes what is an overall rather low-key approach, and both the orchestral and choral parts have been performed with more intensity, vitality and drama elsewhere. Yet his approach certainly has its virtues as well, and many of the sets and solos are nicely paced, rhythmically vibrant and nicely flowing.

As for the soloists, the main attraction is Bergonzi, whose singing is marvelously stylish and beautiful - his is a somewhat restrained approach which doesn't attempt to wrench every drop of drama out of the character, but in that approach he makes the character all the more vivid; a great performance. Leontyne Price is an excellent partner, full of character and even subtlety - there are moments where her singing comes across as strangely uninvolved, though, but she is overall a magnificent singer here. The late Ezio Flagello is effective and sings with flair and beauty if not overly much character; Sereni is excellent in the more reflective music but sometimes wearisome in the more dramatic parts. Overall, then, this is - I guess - the classic recording of this opera. Muti's version is more dramatic, but rushes some of the arias uncomfortably. It is really a trade-off situation where you might need to have both Schippers and Muti, but in the end I think I prefer Schippers's, if I were to have only one, and not only for the overall better singers on this set but also for the, well, sheer musicality of the performance.

Two of the best verdian interpreter of all time make this one of the best Verdian collectables available. Leontyne Price demostrates why she is the best Verdian soprano of her and of all time. Bergonzi does justice to the role although not of the ideal vocal size for the role. The supporting cast also fullfills their duties quite well. James Walters

I don't know of any great Ernani's on CD; this is a pretty good one, though. Bergonzi and Price are in superb form, and if they can't quite make Ernani and Elvira three-dimensional, they find surprising nuances in their characters, and make them seem beautiful, noble, and worthy of our sympathy. Sereni is a strong Don Carlo, too, particularly in his more aggressive moments (his disdain for Ernani when they confront each other in act I is palpable). Flagello is good without being remarkable, which is a shame because Silva is potentially the most complex character of them all. Leinsdorf doesn't seem like a natural Verdian; this opera is nothing if not flamboyant, and Leinsdorf's interpretation, while certainly dramatic enough, lacks that Mediterranean expansiveness necessary for great Verdi. He's not helped by the sound, which seems too dry, or the several obvious tape splices at crucial junctures of the opera. All in all, although nowhere near perfect, this set is definitely worth having for the three top roles, and in the absence of a clear first choice, it's a good buy at the price.