Still on my Verdi binge, I move to Verdi's sprawling, uneven masterpiece,
La Forza del Destino. The Preziosilla scenes tend to outstay their welcome for me, but they do add a sort of Shakespearean sweep to the opera, which, though mostly tragic in vein, also introduces us to the comic figure of Fra Melitone, brilliantly played by Renato Capecchi on this recording.
The great virtues of this set are Serafin's masterful conducting of the score and Callas's peerless Leonora. Others (Leontyne Price in her earlier recording, for instance) may have sung the score with more consistent beauty of tone, but none have peered so deeply into Leonora's psyche, nor rendered the score with such uncanny accuracy, perfectly executing all the little graces, with which the score abounds, but which are usually ignored by less technically accomplished sopranos. But, as usual with Callas, she goes beyond accurate observation of the score to reveal the meaning behind the notes. Her very first words (
oh angosica) tell us of the conflict in Leonora’s heart, her voice suffused with melancholy. Other sopranos may have given us a more beautifully poised sustained pianissimo top Bb in
Pace pace, or drawn a firmer line in
La vergine degli angeli, and those for whom such vocal niceties are paramount should probably look elsewhere, but that would be a pity for they would miss
an unparalleled musical sensibility and imagination, subtle changes of tonal weight through the wonderfully shaped set-pieces, and a grasp of the musico-dramatic picture which is unique.
(Lord Harewood in Opera on Record).
Rossi-Lemeni is a sympathetic and authoritative, but woolly voiced Padre Guardiano, Tagliabue a bit over the hill as Carlo and Tucker a forthright, virile presence, though he has a tendency to sob and aspirate in, one assumes, what he thought was the Italian manner.
No matter, the great moments are all with Callas and Serafin, the whole scene from
Madre pietosa vergine to
La vergine degli angeli a
locus classicus of her incomparable art.
