Decca Classic Recitals is a lovely series of reissues: handsome digipacks showing the original cover art of beloved LPs from the 1950s through the 1980s. It was someone's sadistic idea of a joke, I guess, to reproduce the back cover notes in approximately quarter-point type; said notes are offered as images at the project website along with PDFs of liner notes, when available.
These retro morsels sell for about $12 a pop—a so-so price, given the absence of notes and the sometimes measly programs. (Some hover around 40 minutes in toto. Yeah, remember LPs?)
Nonetheless, several Decca Classic Recitals belong in the collection of everyone who loves great singing. From first note to last, Christmas with Leontyne Price is among the most mind-blowingly beautiful vocal recordings ever issued. Made in 1961, it captures her in radiant, sumptuous form. Though Christmas is not my holiday, Price's a cappella rendition of "Sweet li'l Jesus boy" always moves me to tears. Her faith and dignity and the sterling support of the Wiener Philharmoniker under Herbert von Karajan restore to fervent splendor hymns and carols that so many others have reduced to treacly slime.
The material on Carlo Bergonzi: Operatic Recital, like Price's Christmas album, has been available on CD before. Still, that knee-buckling caress on "fra quegli estremi aneliti" in "Ah sì, ben mio" (which also boasts decent approximations of trills), the manly sensuality of Bergonzi's Puccini… I've joked elsewhere about "That's no musician; that's a tenor," but Bergonzi has it all: that ripe, burnished, grab-you-in-the-gut timbre and patrician artistry. This is another CD on which every track enthralls.
vilaine fille will put up with almost any amount of wobble to experience the fire and ecstasy of Dame Gwyneth's art, but Gwyneth Jones: Operatic Recital, recorded in 1966, imposes no such bargains. She is in blazing form: Her "Abscheulicher!" (Fidelio) is electrifying and utterly secure, one of the finest versions ever set down; her "Ah, perfido!"* combines fury, vulnerability, and allure in ideal proportion; her "D'amor sull'ali rosee" (Trovatore), while not rising to the level of Callas's, is lovingly shaded and glows with the dark flame of Verdi's drama. The Médée excerpt doesn't work for me, but Senta's ballad… Oh my! (*vilaine fille faints from rapture*)
*[Eva Marton—I kid you not—recorded a gorgeous "Ah, perfido!" with Tilson Thomas and the English Chamber Orchestra. Does anyone know if it is available on CD?]
Italian Opera Arias may not be canonical Régine Crespin—her smoldering Wagner and regal way with French repertoire rightly come to mind first—but what voluptuousness and glamour she brought to Italian music! Listen to the sample of Crespin in Boito's "L'altra notte" (Mefistofele) to hear what I mean.
Before there was Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, there was Kathleen Ferrier, whose 1952 Bach and Handel Recital is balm for the soul. (The mono-to-stereo kluge, however, is not a selling point for me.)
Luciano Pavarotti: Arias by Verdi and Donizetti, his 1968 début recital, reminds us that, yes, the Pav was once an artist and not just a clown. The selections are of a pensive cast (Rolando Villazón sings some of the same material on his début CD); the characterizations are not always sharply drawn; but Pavarotti's crackling enunciation, superb command of dynamics, and inimitable, reedy-shiny tone are marvels. His sweet melancholy in Donizetti has rarely been bettered.
Among the Classic Recitals I've listened to so far, I've met with only one clunker: Nilsson Sings Verdi. I have immense respect for Birgit Nilsson, but her sludgy, garbled Italian throughout this program is grotesque, and she sounds like a linebacker sent to do a ballerina's job. (On the other hand, if you enjoy monstrosities of the we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-fioritura variety, this disc might be right up your alley.)
Prochainement sur vos écrans : vilaine fille holds forth on the *best* Decca Classic Recital (so far). Stay tuned!
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