Turandot : Tullio Serafin / Teatro alla Scala, Maria Callas, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Eugenio Ferandini, etc (1957 Monaural)(2SACD)(Hybrid)

Japanese remastered 2 x Hybrid SACD pressing. Warner. 2014. Puccini's Turandot was the sixteenth complete opera recording Columbia/Angel made with the Callas and the company of La Scala. Unlike almost every other famous soprano of her day, from Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1915-2006) to Joan Sutherland [b.1926] and Montserrat Caball [b.1933], Callas never ventured a contemporary opera; Turandot, first performed in 1926 was the only work she sang in younger than she was herself. Turandot is the perfect vehicle for an ample-sized dramatic soprano with a steady, steely and brilliant voice rising easily to top C. Those of US who saw the truly great Turandot of Birgit Nilsson (1918-2005), will know how ideally it requires a vocal glamour equivalent of a boxer with something of his horse-power. It does not need much in the way of nuance or refinement and no great demands are made on the art of legato and portamento, or in the clean articulation of ornaments. It does not compare with a rle like Norma, which calls for dramatic accents for far longer stretches, and for a complete mastery of fioritura through every dynamic shading from pianissimo to fortissimo. In the first two years of her career in Italy Callas appeared as Turandot 21 times. A recorded fragment survives from one of the last performances she sang in 1949 at the Coln, Buenos Aires. She manages the lower passages, which pass back and forth into the chest register, more expressively than Turandots are usually capable of, but she has a whole battery of effects that she cannot employ effectively; all we are conscious of is her singing too strenuously. In the days of her youth when she had to pursue her career without vocal compromises it may have been necessary but as soon as she could, wisely, she dropped it from her repertory. Why she made this recording in 1957 was perhaps because she thought recording it was different from singing it in the theatre and would do her voice no irreparable damage. Nevertheless the following year she seems to have had second thoughts for she told New York radio interviewer Harry Fleetwood, 'I sang it all over Italy, hoping to God that it wouldn't wreck my voice. Princess Turandot - Maria Callas (soprano) Calaf (The unknown prince) - Eugenio Fernandi (tenor) Li - Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (soprano) The Emperor Altoum - Giuseppe Nessi (tenor) Timur - Nicola Zaccaria (bass) Ping - Mario Borriello (baritone) Pang - Renato Ercolani (tenor) Pong / Prince of Persia - Piero de Palma (tenor) A mandarin - Giulio Mauri (bass-baritone) First voice - Elisabetta Fusco (soprano) Second voice - Pinuccia Perotti (soprano)