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stereophile, Dec 15, 2015 |
By Robert Levine |
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Recording of January 2016: Verdi: Aida
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It
has been a long time since we've had a big-budget, studio recording of Aida;
in fact, the last was from 2001, and it was awful—conductor Nikolaus
Harnoncourt's attempt to present an intimate (read: "miniaturized") reading
of the score, a sort of period-instrument approach with small-voiced
singers. In all, Aida has been taken on nearly 30 studio outings (the first
was in 1928), and there are "private" and video versions. This is one of the
best, with what might arguably be the finest cast one can assemble today.
One might also argue that recording Aida without an Italian in an
important role is heresy, but if that were the case, many others would also
be burnt at the stake: Leontyne Price, Jon Vickers, and Rita Gorr under
Georg Solti; Maria Callas and Richard Tucker; not to mention Zinka Milanov,
Jussi Björling, and Leonard Warren. Granted, Renata Tebaldi and Carlo
Bergonzi under Herbert von Karajan do offer a type of plush singing, filled
with morbidezza, and Karajan is at his most extraordinary. (Those who recall
John Culshaw will own that spectacularly fidgeted-with recording, which
was/is billed as an attempt to re-create how it would be heard onstage. The
orchestra remained too loud, the Temple and Tomb Scenes added reverb, etc.
It now seems a bit too in-your-face for my taste.)
This new recording
was made in February 2015, a few days before a concert performance in Rome's
Auditorium Parco della Musica, designed by Renzo Piano and opened in 2002.
Famous for its superb acoustical warmth, it is considered the finest
auditorium in Italy. The sound is utterly natural, and conductor, players,
singers, and engineers have paid diligent attention to Verdi's dynamic
markings without any artificial fiddling. Pianissimi are truly quiet—the
very opening of the opera is present but absolutely hushed, with Verdi's
divided strings clear and warm. When the forte comes (at 1:40), it blows up
neither your head nor your speakers. The offstage prayers in the Nile Scene
are truly distant, and add to the gloriously still atmosphere of those first
few, tranquil moments before Aida's agitated entrance; in Act IV, the
Priests and Ramfis are supposed to be in some sort of subterranean chamber,
and are thusly recorded. These and Verdi's other written 3D effects (eg, the
onstage brass for the Triumphal Scene) and massed moments are re-created
just as effectively as are the intimate ones. Despite the very effective big
set pieces, we are presented here with a tender, doomed love story; rarely
has the hushed Tomb Scene sounded so reflectively sad, both vocally and
orchestrally.
Antonio Pappano's insistence on legato in both singing
and playing (and the Santa Cecilia Orchestra and Chorus have this music with
their breakfasts) trump the non-Italianness of the cast. Aside from
Ekaterina Semenchuk as Amneris, none of the principals had yet sung his or
her role onstage when this was taped. When we first meet Semenchuk's
Amneris, she sings sweetly and gently to Radames, dipping into chest voice
only in the trio in the first scene in which Aida and Radames realize they
may be found out and Amneris begins to let loose her anger. Each vocal line
is understandable, the feelings rather than the volume are paramount, and
Amneris becomes dangerous. Her Judgment Scene is very much of the grand
school of Cossotto and Barbieri: exciting.
Anja Harteros, a German
soprano who sings a great deal of Verdi, has the style down perfectly but is
somewhat lacking the breadth needed in the middle of the voice. She is,
however, a fine singing actress, and at first a timid Aida: a woman in love,
a victim of her fate. The voice is attractive, even if it does occasionally
let her down—it loses its center when she sings quietly, and the high C in
"O patria mia," while forgivably not sung softly, is a hair flat. But she
reacts superbly to each situation around her: her reading is a success. Her
Radames, Jonas Kaufmann, is close to faultless. With Pappano's help, he
sings "Celeste Aida" as if in a dream, sliding perfectly up to the Fs softly
on the second syllable of "AiDA," as written, letting loose with big, virile
sounds when he should, and closing the aria on the high B-flat softly—and
then reins it in even further, as Verdi wanted. He is always involved and
alert, both a warrior and a lover, and incapable of being boring. A cross
between Vickers and Bergonzi, I'd say, and it doesn't get any better.
Ludovic Tézier's Amonasro is well drawn and handsomely sung, if a bit
soft-edged; he's good enough to scare Aida in Act III. Erwin Schrott's
Ramfis does not quite bully enough; Marco Spotti, as the King, sings with
authority. Eleanora Buratto's Priestess is ravishing. And the Santa Cecilia
forces could not be bettered. A stunning achievement.
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