Five Operas: Better Than They Seemed

they shall have music

BY HERBERT KUPFERBERG

It is possible to go through a musical lifetime without once coming upon a live performance of such operas as Princess Ida, Rusalka, The Trojans, Mosè, and Tiefland. Indeed, most listeners know these works, if they know them at all, purely by reputation: Princess Ida as a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta that never quite made the grade, Rusalka as a Dvořák fairy tale honored mostly in its own country, The Trojans as a Berlioz epic too grandiose for stage production, Mosè. as a Rossini period piece based loosely on a biblical text, and Tiefland as a nineteenthcentury Germanic melodrama written by an eccentric piano virtuoso, Eugen Francis Charles d’Albert.

All these works have now been rescued, at least temporarily, from desuetude through the issuance of new recordings. The overall effect is to suggest that while the shortcomings of these operas are plainly and even painfully apparent, their virtues arc equally stubborn and sometimes triumphant.

Princess Ida, or Castle Adamant, is a good example. Gilbert and Sullivan wrote it in 1884, directly between Iolanthe and The Mikado, and it ran for nine months at the Savoy Theater. But the D’Oyly Carte Company didn’t add it to its repertory until 1922, and it has led only a sporadic existence there since; it is never included, for instance, in the company’s American tours.

Princess Ida (London OSA-1262, stereo; A-4262, monaural: two records) is set aside from the rest of the Gilbert and Sullivan canon by two distinctions, neither of them especially in its favor: it is divided into three acts rather than two, and its spoken dialogue (omitted from the recording) is in blank verse of no great quality. Moreover, women’s education, the subject it satirizes, is no longer a joking matter, so that some of its gibes and allusions seem almost embarrassingly pointless. Still, Sullivan’s music has its accustomed cheerfulness and charm, and Gilbert has created one of his characteristically comic personages in old King Gama, father to the fair Princess who has run away from love to found a women’s university. Sings Gama in Princess Ida’s most famous lines:

With one or two patter numbers and a goodly share of martial choruses, chaste love songs, and bubbling ensembles, Princess Ida manages to overcome the handicaps of its vapid story and its weak second act, which takes place in the garden of a particularly pallid ladies’ university. The D’Oyly Carte cast, conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent and headed by John Reed as King Gama, Philip Potter as Prince Hilarion, and Elizabeth Harwood as Princess Ida, perform the operetta as though it were absolutely firstrate Gilbert and Sullivan, and sometimes their zest and style almost persuade one that it is.

Antonin Dvořák’s opera Rusalka also has a set of persuasive advocates in the form of the musical forces of the National Theater of Prague, under the direction of Zdenek Chalabala (Artia ALPOS-89D, stereo; SLPO-89D, monaural: four records).

Rusalka is, after Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, the most frequently played of all Czech operas. It is a retelling of the old Ondine story, about a water nymph who falls in love with a human being, with melancholy consequences to them both. Dvořák, who was among the most romantic and nature-oriented of all composers, embellished the tale with music of such iridescence and verdure that it is difficult to understand why Rusalka hasn’t extended its spell much beyond its native land. Its language, of course, is an obstacle, and its second act, in which the nymphs, dryads, water goblins, and witches temporarily give way to a leaden and tedious pair of mortal lovers, is musically uninspired.

But other operas have benefited from judicious pruning and transplantation, and Rusalka would seem a prime candidate, with its exquisite “Invocation to the Moon” — the only aria which receives an occasional concert performance — its lovely trio of dryads almost spinning songs from moonbeams and water spray, its quicksilvery orchestral blending of the ethereal and the earthy. In this recording Rusalka is sung in Czech, but an unusually elaborate libretto offers translations not only in English but in German and French. The Prague National Theater cast, with Milad a Subrtova, soprano, as Rusalka, and Eduard Haken, bass, as the paternalistic Water-Gnome, who tries vainly to keep her from earthly harm, is obviously steeped in the music and sings it with taste and sympathy. But one is left with the feeling that Rusalka really merits the attention of the great lyric artists of the world’s foremost opera houses.

Just as the Czechs consider Rusalka as one of their great musical specialties, so do the French regard Berlioz’s massive opera Les Troyens. Actually, France has been a long time getting around to Les Troyens; Berlioz’s Memoirs tells of the bitterness he felt over its failure to gain the stage ot the Paris Opéra; and he never saw it performed complete anywhere in his lifetime. Even its new Angel recording, with Regine Crespin, soprano, Guy Chauvet, tenor, and the chorus and orchestra of the Paris Opéra under Georges Prêtre, consists merely of highlights from the five-hour score (Angel SB-3670, stereo; B-3670, monaural: two records).

The difficulties of a complete recording are very real, for the work is not only lengthy but unwieldy. Berlioz, an ardent admirer of Virgil, attempted nothing less than to set large portions of the Aeneid to music. What he finally emerged with was a two-part work, the first, La Prise de Troie, dealing with Cassandra’s dire prophecies and the fall of Troy, the second, Les Troyens à Carthage, depicting the love affair of Dido and Aeneas after the fleeing Trojans have been shipwrecked at Carthage.

Berlioz was never one to work on a small scale, and he drew his picture of the Trojan War and its aftermath in broad musical strokes. When he came to write a love duet for Dido and Aeneas he abandoned Virgil and turned to Shakespeare, borrowing (of all things!) the love scene between Jessica and Lorenzo from the opening of Act V of The Merchant of Venice: “in such a night/ Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls/ And sigh’d his soul toward the Grecian tents,/ Where Crcssid lay that night.” Berlioz, who wrote his own libretto, found a rather charming if less poetic French equivalent: “Par une telle unit, Jou d’amour et de joiej Troïlus vint attendre aux pieds des mure deTroie la belle Cressida.” It is no exaggeration to say that Berlioz turned this particular passage into one of the great love duets in all opera, finding for it music filled with sensuousness and languor. Similarly, the famous Royal Hunt and Storm sequence is, like the Leonore Overture No. 3 or Siegfried’s Rhine Journey, one of opera’s great orchestral showpieces.

But it is a bit disturbing to find that the love duet and the Royal Hunt and Storm stand out as the most impressive excerpts on these records, which contain, altogether, nine selections from the opera. Does Les Troyens require an uncut full-length production to really establish its grandeur, or has its reputation been somewhat overinflated through its long years of no productions at all? It is a question one would be curious to see answered upon the stage.

Performances of Rossini’s Old Testament opera Mosè are a rarity, too, although I can remember going, as an eager teen-ager, to a production exactly thirty years ago given at the old New York Hippodrome by the energetic if unsubtle forces of Maestro Alfredo Salmaggi’s popular opera company, then playing at a one-dollar top. In Rossini’s own day Mosè was a celebrated work, with one melody, “Moses’ Prayer,” that was regarded as so beautiful that fashionable young ladies would swoon upon hearing it. Mosè made its first appearance in an Italian version entitled Mosè in Egitto; later Rossini rewrote and amplified it for the Paris Opéra in a form generally known since as Moïse. Philips now makes Mosè available in a recording which, with supreme illogic, presents the later French version translated back into the original Italian (PHM 3-580, monaural only: three records).

This recording was made in Italy in 1956, but has never before been released in the United States, presumably because of the lack of a stereo version. Certainly Philips need not have held back on the grounds of sound; there is plenty of tonal richness and presence in the monaural set. The main failing of this Mosè has to do with Mosè himself, for Nicola Rossi-Lcmeni, the bass who sings the role, lacks the power and personality to present a convincing picture of the lawgiver. The rest of the cast is able enough, with Giuseppe Taddei, baritone, as Pharaoh, Mario Filippeschi, tenor, as his son, and the chorus and orchestra of San Carlo, Naples, conducted by Tulio Scrafin. Mosé is certainly an opera worth knowing. Its choral passages are central to the work, from the “Plague of Darkness” to the “Grossing of the Red sSca”; its confrontations of Moses and Pharaoh — two dark voices in bold juxtaposition—■ are dramatic and dignified; and it also offers a goodly share of amiable love music. Its own brand of biblical exegesis is as quaint as it is original: according to the libretto, Moses has a niece named Anaide who is secretly in love with Pharaoh’s son Aménofi. Naturally, Aménofi doesn’t wish Anaide to leave on the exodus, which is why Pharaoh keeps reneging on his promise to let the Hebrews depart, necessitating the Ten Plagues and ultimately the drowning of the Egyptian army, Aménofi included. The climax of the opera comes not in the “Passage of the Red Sea” (a purely orchestral passage, one might note), but in Moses’ song on the shore, “Dal tuo stellato soglio” (“From Thy starry throne”). This is the famous “Prayer” that induced giddiness among the more susceptible young women of Rossini’s era. Today we live in sterner times, but Rossini’s “Prayer,” passed from voice to voice until it builds into a mighty ensemble, provides his only biblical opera with a moving and majestic conclusion.

The foregoing operas, obscure though they may be, at least are the work of renowned and respected composers. But who nowadays knows the name of Eugen d’Albert, a pupil of Liszt’s who succeeded his master as probably the world’s most dazzling pianist and who lived until , 1932? D’Albert was born in Glasgow of a French mother and a German father, but Germany was his spiritual and musical home, and when he began writing operas, they were Germanic to the core. Tiefland was his greatest operatic success; it actually achieved a Metropolitan production one year, and holds the stage to this day in Germany.

In presenting Tiefland on records, Deutsche Grammophon has wisely chosen to offer only excerpts (136424, stereo; 19424. monaural). The story has to do with the evils that befall a simple Pyrenees shepherd who is forced by circumstances to descend into the immoral atmosphere of the valley (Tiefland means “lowland”). All ends well, with Pedro the shepherd triumphing over a rich and rascally landowner and heading back to the hills with his true love. D’ Albert imbued his opera, at least the portion which is presented here, with a feeling of romantic melancholy and climaxed it with a highly naturalistic handto-hand battle between hero and villain. Inge Borkh, soprano, Hans Hopf, tenor, and a promising American baritone named Thomas Stewart strike a proper balance between the romanticism and realism of the music. Of all the operas listed here, Tiefland seems least likely to succeed on the stage, but it makes for a lively single record of excerpts.

Record Reviews

Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier

Joao Carlos Martins, pianist; Connoisseur Society CS-8657 (stereo or

monaural): seven records This is a whopping album by any standard. Few pianists have attempted to record the Well-Tempered Clavier complete, leaving that Herculean task to harpsichordists. Among those who have tried, and completed, the course, Martins’ achievement is a standout. The young Brazilian pianist combines technical virtuosity and intellectual orderliness in a work that demands both in about equal proportion. And unless one slips on Wanda Landowska’s old recording of the WellTempered Clavier — a nasty trick to play on any pianist — he almost persuades the listener that the piano really is the proper instrument for the “Forty-eight.” The accompanying booklet includes a thematic index of the preludes and fugues.

Dances of Ancient Poland

Wanda Landowska, harpsichordist; RCA Victor LM-2830 (monaural only) Wanda Landowska could make the harpsichord support the mighty musical edifices of J. S. Bach, but she could also make it dance. Her ability to do so was never demonstrated more ingratiatingly than on this record, which includes two polonaises by the Polish composer Oginski, works in the Polish style by Rameau and Couperin, and Chopin’s Mazurka in C, Opus 56, No. 2, sounding comfortably at home on Mine. Landowska’s harpsichord. Perhaps the most pleasant surprise of all comes in Landowska’s own Bounce d’Auvergne. Landowska’s jacket notes claim an affinity for these tunes with the Polish oberek. Perhaps so; but they also sound a bit like a Virginia reel. Whatever the national origins of these works, together they make for a playful, gay, and charming record.

Bernstein: Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs Copland: Clarinet Concerto Could: Derivations for Clarinet and Hand

Stravinsky: Ebony Concerto

Benny Goodman, clarinetist, with Columbia Symphony Orchestra and Columbia Jazz Combo conducted by the composers; Columbia MS-6S05 (stereo) and ML-6205

Meeting at the Summit is the formal title of this record, in which Mr. Goodman plays his way through four jazz compositions by four “classical” musicians. Oddly, there is more diversity than might be expected from four composers deliberately adopting the same idiom. The Bernstein piece is the most exciting and imaginative, the Gould the jazziest, the Copland the most folkish, and the Stravinsky the most . . . well . . . Stravinskian. All are played with verve and brilliance by Goodman and his nameless colleagues of the Columbia Jazz Combo.

An Evening Wasted With: Torn Lehrer

Tom Lehrer accompanying himself at the piano; Reprise R-6199 A move —which, with luck, may develop into a stampede — has begun to issue to a wider world the original recordings of Tom Lehrer, the Harvard mathematician turned satirist and singer. In this ease, Reprise has reissued a 1959 collection of vintage Lehrer, including a list of chemical elements set to the tune of the Major-General’s song from The Pirates of Penzance; a resetting of “Clementine” in the manners of Cole Porter, Mozart, and Gilbert and Sullivan; a thoroughly commercial little Christmas carol; and a cheerfully grisly paean to the Bomb entitled “We’ll All Go Together When We Go.” ‘Phis is gallows humor set to witty and bouncy music, and with its brightness and point as sharp as ever.

A Man Dies

Sung and played by Valerie Mountain, Ricky Eorde. the Strangers, and the boys and girls of St. James’s Church, Lockleaze, Bristol, England; Odeon (Capitol Import) 33SX-1609 (monaural only) This is a rock ‘n’ roll Gospel musical play, produced originally in a Bristol church, which has evidently caused considerable stir in England. It attempts to tell the story of Jesus in modern terms, which would presumably appeal strongly to teenagers. Thus, a blues song is superimposed over a Bach prelude much in the manner of Gounod’s Ave Maria; Negro spirituals weave in and out of the score; and the search for a room at the inn is told in such verses as: “The kid may be born before the night — they’re lull right up — you gotta find a room.” Some of the songs, such as “Gentle Christ,” which runs through the work as a kind of refrain, attain an affecting mood, and there is plenty of drive and fervor in the performances. But the ultimate impression is that of a curiosity rather than a religious expression.

The Stevenson Wit

Edited by Bill Adler, narrated by David Brinkley; RCA Victor VDM -107 (monaural)

Adlai E. Stevenson: The Man, the Candidate, the Statesman

Written and narrated by Bill Scott; The Macmillan Co. AS-101 (monaural) Of these two records memorializing Adlai Stevenson, it is the first, devoted frankly to his wit, which gives the warmer and rounder picture of the man. The narration by David Brinkley is unobtrusive, and the Stevenson excerpts, far from being a collection of quips and snippets, cover a surprising variety of subjects and circumstances, including campaign speeches in Brooklyn and formal addresses before the United Nations. Some of the same passages are included on the Macmillan record too, but here they arc encumbered by a pretentious narration and unneeded musical effects. The Macmillan release does offer two advantages, however: it presents one Stevenson speech intact (his “Personal Essay on Democracy,” delivered on January 14, 1962), and it includes a printed speeeh-byspecch index of the record’s contents.