The Royal Opera's latest release on its Heritage Series label is a 1957 live performance of Tosca with two of the greatest singers of the 20th Century - Franco Corelli and Zinka Milanov. With so many recordings available of this opera, this may be one strictly for the fans. If you are an admirer of either of these singers, though, you are in for a treat.
When this recording was made in July 1957, Franco Corelli was making his Royal Opera debut at the age of 36 while the Croatian soprano Zinka Milanov, who had been singing Tosca for nearly 30 years then, was in her early fifties.
It was one career starting to take off and another coming towards an end. Milanov continued to sing Tosca for another few years but was a little past her best, although she had had a sensational debut in the role at Covent Garden the year before this performance was recorded. A couple of weeks later, she was to go into the studio to record it with Jussi Björling, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf.
Corelli was one of the most glamorous tenors of them all, with dashing matinee idol looks and a voice that, at its best, was glorious. His lower notes had a gravelly quality which could be quite unpleasant but when he let rip, his high notes were sensational. He also had a tendency to try and prove that he had the most powerful voice in the world, which often resulted in barnstorming performances that could have done with being pulled back a bit.
In this performance, he's in great form and, if at times he seems to be trying to outdo Gian Giacomo Guelfi as Scarpia, it just adds to the excitement. His "Vittoria" in Act 2 is held the longest I think I've ever heard it and "E lucevan le stelle" is followed by an enormous ovation which all but brings the orchestra to a halt.
Milanov had tremendous longevity in the role of Tosca, singing it for a total of 36 years. Her teacher had been Milka Ternina, a fellow Croatian who played the part in the first performance at Covent Garden in 1900 in front of the composer himself.
Milanov is surprisingly restrained much of the time, without the histrionics you often get in the part and singing "Vissi d'arte" particularly sweetly and simply.
The Covent Garden Orchestra is conducted by a young Alexander Gibson, then director of Sadlers Wells Opera and also making his debut in the house. It's an exciting performance by the man who went on to found Scottish Opera. Other parts are played by popular Covent Garden singers of the day - Michael Langdon, Forbes Robinson and Ronald Lewis among them.
The mono sound is inevitably limited, with the singers often sounding distant and a fair amount of background noise from the stage and audience. This in itself makes it a bit of a specialist release that won't appeal to everyone.
If you want to hear two great singers ideally suited to their roles, though, this is to be recommended. Personally, if I wanted to hear Milanov, I would go for the studio recording with Björling but that is, at least in part, because of a preference for the tenor. Fans of the two stars will no doubt snap the recording up. For the rest of us, it's an interesting record of a bygone era.
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