[5/15/2011] Remembering Margaret Price, Part 9 -- Verdi's "A Masked Ball" with two Prices and another luminary (continued)

The conjuring of the seer Ulrica (mezzo-soprano) Elena Obraztsova) at La Scala, 1978, Claudio Abbado conducting

What an opera! It's the only Somma/Verdi collaboration (Verdi had started, but never completed, setting Somma's King Lear libretto), which is a pity. The action is compelling and entertaining; the verse are sturdy, frequenlty elegant, and sufficiently varied in form to allow Verdi great freedom. Arias, scenas, and ensembles (what ensembles!) of every size, shape, and temper -- never before had Verdi written with such consistent harmonic and rhythmic boldness and assurance; the melodies are not only unfailingly, lavishly first-rate, but also intimately contoured to the lines of the story. It is worth noting that Ballo is Verdi's only pre-Aida opera regularly performed without musical tampering.

-- me, reviewing a reissue of the Callas-di Stefano-Gobbi-Barbieri-Serafin-EMI Ballo in the June 1974 High Fidelity

It amazes me that I can quote something I wrote this long ago without cringing, but this still says what I believe about A Masked Ball -- and about that recording. I wrote that Antonino Votto "shapes the music beautifully," and that --

only the best will do for the three principal roles, all among Verdi's greatest, and Callas, di Stefano, and Gobbi are vocally and dramatically superb -- in each case this may be the singer's best Verdi recording. This, [Fedora] Barbieri's second Ulrica, is the most securely sung on records. . . . [Silvio] Maionica and [Nicola] Zaccaria are imposing conspirators.

Oh, I wrote some stuff later in the review that I wonder at now, but we don't need to go into that.


WE'RE NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING FANCY
IN OUR QUICK MASKED BALL SURVEY

Since we're focusing on the heroine, Amelia, to go with our Margaret Price excerpts, from the second complete Ballo conducted by Sir Georg Solti, I've chosen a performance featuring the greatest Amelia of my experience, Leontyne Price, and what seems to me Maria Callas's finest operatic studio recording. (The hoopla goes to the Tosca with Giuseppe di Stefano and Tito Gobbi, with Victor de Sabata conducting, and these folks might well have had a helluva Tosca in them, but this doesn't sound like it to me. I speculate that producer Walter Legge with his middlebrow control-freak "perfectionism" drilled the individuality and life out of everyone's performances. By contrast the Ballo finds all its contributors really contributing.)

Let's get listening now, and ease our way into our three performances by hearing the Prelude from each. The piece works out themes that will be heard in the opening scene, the first two representing two strains among the governor's court -- the first loyal, the second budding-insurrectionist, punctuated by the broad tune to which Riccardo, seeing her name on the invitation list for his upcoming masked ball, voices his infatuation for the beautiful Amelia, the wife of his closest adviser, confidant, and friend, Renato.

These recordings weren't chosen as the "best performances" of these excerpts, though I will certainly stand the Amelias of Leontyne Price and Maria Callas up with any I've heard, and while their associates here may not all be in the same class, they're not exactly zeroes either. One thing we could certainly have used is a really thundering Renato for the opening of Act III. I was sorely tempted to slip in Gino Bechi from the old recording with Beniamino Gigli and Maria Caniglia, but in the end I stuck to the principle of keeping it simple.

Un Ballo in maschera: Prelude

National Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded May-June 1982 and May 1983
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, cond. Live performance, Feb. 26, 1966
Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Antonino Votto, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 4-9, 1956

SPLENDID FELLOW OR TYRANT? OR BOTH?

Of Verdi's roles for the lighter-weight lyric-tenor voice, there's no question that Ballo's Riccardo is the juiciest, and it's hardly surprising that tenors who can sing the role love it. Our governor thinks of himself as, well, a prince -- gallant, generous, and just. And some of his subjects think of him that way too. Others, however, see him as self-indulgent, arbitrary, and downright tyrannical.

Of course it's only in opera that a man may be secretly madly in love with his most cherished and trusted friend's wife. So let's indulge ourselves with this extraordinary and unheard-of spectacle, and as we focus on the object of Riccardo's passion, Amelia, we can see both his lighter and his darker sides. On the bright side, for a man who is evidently unaccustomed to denying himself, he has indeed loyally (and sensibly) kept his secret passion secret. On the dark side, when he happens to learn that his passion is requited, well, let's listen.

In the opera's second scene, the governor and his court decide as a lark to pay a visit to a local seer who has been brought up on charges before him. By coincidence -- and what would opera be without conicidence? -- during their jolly outing Ulrica, the seer, learns that she has a highly confidential client wishing to see her, and she has the room cleared for her. Except for Riccardo, that is, who recognizes the envoy as a servant of Amelia and stays behind, hidden. He learns that the desperate Amelia has come seeking help, seeking "peace," to be precise, from her secret passion for the man who rules them all. Ulrica directs her to a terrifying destination, a desolate field to the west of the city, the site of the gallows, where by moonlight, at midnight (when else?), she can pluck an herb that will give her the obliviousness she's looking for. Amelia expresses relief and hope; Riccardo, giddiness and excitement.

I apologize for not including English texts, as I usually do. It was just too much work, and would have occupied an overwhelming chunk of online real estate, and I never know whether anyone makes any use of them anyway. I hoped to find a convenient online libretto, but I didn't. If you want to complain, you have every right.

Act I, Scene 2: Ulrica-Amelia-Riccardo scene: Ulrica, "Che v'agita così" ("What trouble you so?"), Amelia, "Pace, svellermi dal petto" ("Peace, to root out of my breast") . . . Riccardo "Che ascolto! Anima mia!" ("What do I hear! My soul!")

Christa Ludwig (ms), Ulrica; Margaret Price (s), Amelia; Luciano Pavarotti (t), Riccardo; National Philharmonic Orchestrta, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded May-June 1982 and May 1983
Mignon Dunn (ms), Ulrica; Leontyne Price (s), Amelia; Carlo Bergonzi (t), Riccardo; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, cond. Live performance, Feb. 26, 1966
Fedora Barbieri (ms), Ulrica; Maria Callas (s), Amelia; Giuseppe di Stefano (t), Riccardo; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Antonino Votto, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 4-9, 1956

WHAT SHE DID TO GET OVER LOVE

Act II is set -- where else? -- in "a lonely spot at the foot of a steep hill, in the vicinity of Boston," by the gallows. "Here is the horrible place were death is coupled with crime," the heavily veiled Amelia declares in her dramatic recitative as she arrives at the spot designated by Ulrica. Everything around her fills her with loathing and terror, even of death. As midnight arrives, her imagination runs wild, and in the first of her two gorgeous arias, "Ma dall'arido stelo divulsa," she releases some of her dread. (The photo shows Leontyne Price as Amelia in Act II in San Francisco.)

Act II, Prelude . . . Recitative and Aria, Amelia, "Ecco l'orrido campo" ("Here is the horrible field") . . . "Ma dall'arido stelo divulsa" ("But when from the withered stem")

Margaret Price (s), Amelia; National Philharmonic Orchestrta, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded May-June 1982 and May 1983
Leontyne Price (s), Amelia; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, cond. Live performance, Feb. 26, 1966
Maria Callas (s), Amelia; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Antonino Votto, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 4-9, 1956

RICCARDO TENDS TO GET WHAT HE WANTS

This excerpt follows immediately upon the preceding. At the height of Amelia's terrors, who should show up but . . . Riccardo? It may be that he wants nothing more than the satisfaction of hearing her own up that she loves him. Maybe so; they're interrupted before we, or they, can find out. (There turns out to be quite a mob hanging out on the horrid field this night.) Is it necessary to add that this scene develops into one of Verdi's most rapturous love duets?

Act II, Riccardo-Amelia scene: Riccardo, "Teco io sto" ("I am at your side")

Luciano Pavarotti (t), Riccardo; Margaret Price (s), Amelia; National Philharmonic Orchestrta, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded May-June 1982 and May 1983
Carlo Bergonzi (t), Riccardo; Leontyne Price (s), Amelia; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, cond. Live performance, Feb. 26, 1966
Giuseppe di Stefano (t), Riccardo; Maria Callas (s), Amelia; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Antonino Votto, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 4-9, 1956

"BLOOD IS CALLED FOR, AND YOU WILL DIE"

The new arrivals who interrupted the Act II duet were, first, the ever-loyal Renato come to warn that a party of conspirators was drawing nigh to dispatch him and, then, the conspirators themselves. Before their arrival, Renato promised his friend to escort the lady back to the city without attempting to discover her identity, and when the veil slipped off and the paramour turned out to be Renato's wife, the thwarted would-be assassin-liberators at least came away with a hearty laugh for their trouble.

Now we're back home with Renato and Amelia, and rage doesn't get expressed with much more believably explosive musical violence than we hear in the orchestral prelude and then Renato thunders, "Sangue vuolsi e tu morrai" -- blood is called for and she will die.

Amelia attempts to reason with him -- "One instant, it's true, I loved him," she allows -- but Renato at present isn't a man susceptible to reason. In her second great aria, "Morrò, ma prima in grazia," Amelia owns that she will die but asks, as one last favor, to be allowed first to see their child one final time.

Act III, Prelude . . . Renato-Amelia scene: Renato, "A tal colpa è nulla il pianto" ("For such a blow tears avail nothing") . . . Aria, Amelia, "Morrò, ma prima in grazia" ("I will die, but first in pity")

Leo Nucci (b), Renato; Margaret Price (s), Amelia; National Philharmonic Orchestrta, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded May-June 1982 and May 1983
Robert Merrill (b), Renato; Leontyne Price (s), Amelia; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, cond. Live performance, Feb. 26, 1966
Tito Gobbi (b), Renato; Maria Callas (s), Amelia; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Antonino Votto, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 4-9, 1956


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

#