Sunday Classics: Hey, that Puccini sure knew how to make a scene

Yes, the simple lyrical lines of "O mio babbino caro" were heavy going for Renata Scotto by the time she sang all three soprano leads in Puccini's Trittico at the Met in 1981, but the bigger problem with this clip is that it starts too late and ends too early to allow us to appreciate the real accomplishment of the aria.

by Ken

We have two great Puccini arias on our plate. It's not that their greatness isn't acknowledged but that the scope of their achievement is rarely accorded.

In the case of "Recondita armonia," which we began considering in last night's preview, you will rarely hear proper appreciation for the genius of Puccini's musico-dramatic construction, of which Tosca is not just a riveting but an inexhaustibly fascinating example. I can't begin to do justice to this subject, but I think we can at least hear some of the phenomenal care, and of course brilliance, with which just this brief (a mere 10 minutes) opening chunk of Act I is put together.

And in the case of the now-inescapable "O mio babbinio" from Gianni Schicchi, I argued both in a January 2009 post and in Friday night's preview that the gush of mawkish sentimentality we normally hear when the piece is ripped out of context both falsifies it and strips it of most of its originality and brilliance, by which it manages, astoudingly, to be at once profoundly moving and side-splittingly funny.

TOO MUCH, TOO MUCH

Once I had this whole post laid out, with all the audio files in place, I decided that it was just too much, especially after last night's preview grew to more properly post length. So we're going to table most of the Gianni Schicchi discussion to next week, which will also allow us to do a bit more exploring. However, you're still going to hear what I consider the basic minimal representation necessary to make the simplest sense of "O mio babbino caro." Then next week we can fit it into the context of this hilarious scene.

1. TOSCA:
"Recondita armonia"

In last night's preview, we wound up hearing almost the whole scene, or the portion of the scene we're considering here. The only "new" music today is the Sacristan's musically memorable entrance and brief solo scene before the entrance of Cavaradossi. As it happens, it was this scene in particular -- and in particular the once seeming uniquitousness of Fernando Corena's Sacristan -- that got me to thinking about doing some sort of post, which gradually morphed into this one. Sure enough, today we're going to hear this portion of Corena's Sacristan three times over, and that still omits an earlier (1952) and a later (1979) recording of the role.

I thought we would begin by breaking the scene down into three component parts:

1. Opening, "Ah! Finalmente!"
(scene of Angelotti)

The desperate fugitive we meet shortly after the curtain rises on the interior of Rome's church of Sant' Andrea della Valle will later be identified for us by the painter Mario Cavaradossi as Cesare Angelotti, the onetime consul of the overthrown Roman Republic.

[ANGELOTTI enters, dressed as a prisoner, torn, disheveled, trembling with fear, almost running. He gives a quick glance around.]
ANGELOTTI: Ah! Finally! In my dumb terror
I thought I saw a policeman's jowl in every face.
[Turns to look around attentively, and calms down as he recognizes the place. He gives a sigh of relief seeing the column with the basin of holy water and the Madonna.]
The basin . . . the column . . .
"At the foot of the Madonna,"
my sister wrote me.
[Advances, searches at the feet of the Madonna, and draws from it, with a muffled cry of joy, a key.]
Here's the key, and here's the chapel.
[With great care he inserts the key in the lock of the Attavanti Chapel, opens the gate, enters the chapel, recloses, and disppears.]

Silvio Maionica (bs), Angelotti; Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia (Rome), Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, cond. Decca, recorded July 1959

2. "E sempre lava" . . . "Che fai?"
(entrances of the Sacristan and then Cavaradossi)

Note that the way the track points are placed on this CD, the Sacristan's entrance music, which depicts his limping gait as he sets about his morning chores, is tacked onto the Angelotti scene, and this track begins with his first words.

SACRISTAN: And always washing!
Each paintbrush is filthy,
worse than a poor priest's collar.
Mister painter! . . . There!
[Looks toward the scaffold, where the painting stands, and seeing it deserted exclaims in surprise.]
No one! I would have sworn
that the cavalier Cavaradossi had returned.
[Puts the brushes down, climbs up on the scaffold, looks through the basket, and says:]
No, I'm mistaken.
The basket is intact.
[The Angelus sounds. The SACRISTAN kneels and prays quietly.]
SACRISTAN: Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae,
et concepit de Spiritu Sancto.
Ecce ancilla Domini;
fiat mihi secundum Verbum tuum
et Verbum caro factum est
et habitavit in nobis . . .
[CAVARADOSSI enters from the side door and sees the SACRISTAN on his knees.]
CAVARADOSSI: What are you doing?
SACRISTAN: Reciting the Angelus.
[CAVARADOSSI mounts the scaffold and uncovers the painting. It's a Mary Magdalen with large azure eyes and a great shower of golden hair. The painter stands mute in front of it, observing attentively. The SACRISTAN, turning toward CAVARADOSSI to speak to him, sees the uncovered painting and lets out a cry of wonder.]
SACRISTAN: Holy vessels!
Her portrait!
CAVARADOSSI: Whose?
SACRISTAN: That unknown woman
who in recent days has come here to pray.
Totally devoted . . . and pious.
[Motions toward the statue of the Madonna, from which ANGELOTTI earlier removed the key.]
CAVARADOSSI: It's true. And she was so
engrossed in her prayer
that I painted, without her noticing, her beautiful face.
SACRISTAN [to himself]: Flee, Satan, flee!

Fernando Corena (bs), the Sacristan; Mario del Monaco (t), Cavaradossi; Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia (Rome), Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, cond. Decca, recorded July 1959

3. Aria (Cavaradossi), "Dammi i colori" . . . "Recondita armonia"

Now Cavaradossi asks the Sacristan for his paints and resumes contemplation of the painting he has been working on, nothing the "recondite harmony" between the "diverse beauties" of his beloved Tosca and the model for the portrait.

CAVARADOSSI: Give me my paints.
[The SACRISTAN complies. CAVARADOSSI paints rapidly, pausing frequently to observe. The SACRISTAN comes and goes, carrying a small basin in which he continues to wash the paintbrushes. Suddenly CAVARADOSSI stops painting; from his pocket he lifts a medalion containing a miniature portrait, and his eyes go from the medalion to the painting.]

Hidden harmony
of diverse beauties! Flora is dark,
my ardent beloved . . .
SACRISTAN [to himself]: Joke with knaves, and let the saints be.
CAVARADOSSI: And you, unknown beauty,
crowned with blond locks,
you have azure eyes --
Tosca has black eyes.
SACRISTAN [to himself]: Joke with knaves, and let the saints be.
CAVARADOSSI: The art in her mystery
blends together the diverse beauties.
But while I'm painting her,
My sole thought, Tosca, is you!
SACRISTAN [to himself, aside]: These various skirts
who set themselves in competition with the Madonna
give off the stench of Hell.

Joke with knaves, and let the saints be.
But with these Voltairean dogs,
enemies of the holy realm,
there's no point talking.
Joke with knaves, and let the saints be.
For sure, they're sinners, the whole lot.
Let us rather make the sign of the cross.
Excellency, shall I go?
CAVARADOSSI: Do as you please. [Continues to paint.]
SACRISTAN: The basket is full.
Are you serving penitence?
CAVARADOSSI: I'm not hungry.
SACRISTAN [with irony, rubbing his hands]: Oh! I'm sorry!
[He can't suppress a gesture of joy and a glance of avidity toward the basket, which he picks up and sets aside.]
Be sure to close up when you leave.
CAVARADOSSI: Go!
SACRISTAN: I'm going. [Goes out at the rear. CAVARADOSSI, turning his back to the Chapel, works. ANGELOTTI, believing the church deserted, appears behind the gate and inserts the key to open it.]
CAVARADOSSI [turning at the creaking of the lock]: There's someone in there!

Mario del Monaco (t), Cavaradossi; Fernando Corena (bs), the Sacristan; Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia (Rome), Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, cond. Decca, recorded July 1959

NOW LET'S PUT IT ALL TOGETHER

PUCCINI: Tosca: Act I opening scene: "Ah, finalmente" . . . "E sempre lava" . . . "Dammi i colori" . . . "Recondita armonia"

As noted, we're going to hear two more recordings with the then seemingly ubiquitous Fernando Corena as the Sacristan, and the three performances are certainly very different. The RCA recording has the obvious plus of Bjoerling's Cavaradossi, but also a much-underrated contribution from conductor Erich Leinsdorf.

Herbert von Karajan's RCA/Decca recording, made from what has always seemed to me the most satisfying and productive portion of his long career, is for me the most audaciously and most beautifully conducted Tosca on records, and I have to say that even with the way Giuseppe di Stefano is heaving that peerless tenor around by 1962, I prefer his performance here to the one we heard last night, from the widely worshiped 1953 EMI recording.

For me the 1953 EMI Tosca is another of those "legendary" recordings (like the Tristan with Flagstad conducted by Furtwängler, the Rosenkavalier with Schwarzkopf conducted by Karajan, the Fidelio conducted by Klemperer, and the Così conducted by Böhm) in which producer EMI Walter Legge hired outstanding and unquestionably appropriate performers (in this case including also Maria Callas as Tosca and Tito Gobbi as Scarpia, with Victor de Sabata conducting) and then cajoled, steamrollered and where necessary (as with the 19 or however many takes it was of the Tosca "Te Deum" he forced Gobbi to sing) browbeat them into giving, not their own performances, but his sterile, denatured, middlebrow one. Somehow listeners through the generations seem to have been snookered into hearing the performers' reputations rather than the performances that actually made it onto the tapes.


Leonardo Monreale (bs), Angelotti; Fernando Corena (bs), the Sacristan; Jussi Bjoerling (t), Cavaradossi; Rome Opera Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded July 1957


Carlo Cava (bs), Angelotti; Fernando Corena (bs), the Sacristan; Giuseppe di Stefano (t), Cavaradossi; Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. RCA/Decca, recorded September 1962

Believe it or not, it is actually possible to perform this scene without Fernando Corena. The version we're about to hear is in fact from EMI's stereo remake of Maria Callas's Tosca, again featuring Tito Gobbi as Scarpia, and while they're both unquestionably more challenged vocally after the nine-year interval, as suggested above I find the later performances way more alive and grabbing, as indeed I do the performance as a whole. I might add that our Sacristan here, Giorgio Tadeo, is one of the most appealing I've heard. (UPDATE: The only reason I hedged this, as "one of the most appealing," is that I hadn't bothered to relisten to the performance. Appealingness isn't a quality often sought by Sacristans -- Tadeo's is clearly the most appealing I've heard, a really lovely, quite touching piece of work.)


Leonardo Monreale (bs), Angelotti; Giorgio Tadeo (bs), the Sacristan; Carlo Bergonzi (t), Cavaradossi; Paris Conservatory Orchestra, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded Dec. 1964-Jan. 1965

2. GIANNI SCHICCHI:
"O mio babbino caro"

The original issue of EMI's 1958 recording of Gianni Schicchi, from which we'll hear an excerpt next week, featured this watercolor impression of the title character by none other than Tito Gobbi.

As noted above, we're going to defer most of our Gianni Schicchi discussion to next week, but I still want you to hear how "O mio babbino caro" sounds in context.

Gianni Schicchi: "A pro di quella gente?" . . . "O mio babbino caro"

The wily Gianni Schicchi, you'll recall, has been sent for by Rinuccio, a nephew of the Donati family, which is grieving over the recent demise of their, um, beloved old Buoso -- but rather more over the discovery that he had made a new will leaving his most valuable possessions to the monks. Rinuccio has an ulterior motive: He's hopelessly in love with Lauretta, the daughter of Schicchi, whom he knows his fearsome Aunt Zita considers a hopeless parvenu, a despised member of the "new" class in the Florence of 1299. It's hardly coincidental that both Schicchi and his daughter are known, not by real names, but by diminutive nicknames -- not Giovanni and Laura but Gianni and Lauretta.

Indeed, when Schicchi arrives, with his beloved Lauretta in tow, he's treated like dirt by Zita, and is all set to whisk his daughter out of this house of horrors when Rinuccio makes a desperate last appeal to him, even addressing him as "Signor Giovanni." Schicchi explodes: "For the sake of those types? NOTHING! NOTHING! NOTHING!" Then something altogether extraordinary happens.

GIANNI SCHICCHI: For the sake of those types?
NOTHING! NOTHING! NOTHING!

LAURETTA: O my dear little daddy,
I like him, he's lovely, lovely.
I want to go to the Porta Rossa
to buy a wedding ring!
Yes, yes, I want to go there!
And if I were to love him in vain,
I would go to the Ponte Vecchio,
but to throw myself in the Arno!
I'm pining and I'm tormented!
O God, I'd like to die!
Daddy, have pity, have pity!
Daddy, have pity, have pity!

GIANNI SCHICCHI: Give me the will.

Fernando Corena (bs), Gianni Schicchi; Renata Tebaldi (s), Lauretta; Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Lamberto Gardelli, cond. Decca, recorded July 1962

By the way, even though we got to hear more of our friend Fernando Corena's Schicchi here than we did of poor Gabriel Bacquier's in our post-opening video clip, I expect you'd like to hear more of what was a wonderful role assumption. Not to worry, we're going to hear more next week.

UPDATE: We heard more Tosca -- jumping to the great climax of Act I -- in a Friday Sunday Classics "postscript." The Gianni Schicchi thread continued in the following Saturday preview and the Sunday post.


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