Metropolitan Opera House
March 5, 1955 Matinee Broadcast
DON CARLO (Giuseppe Verdi)
Don Carlo...............Richard
Tucker
Elizabeth of Valois.....Eleanor Steber
Rodrigo.................Ettore
Bastianini
Princess Eboli..........Blanche Thebom
Philip
II...............Jerome Hines
Grand Inquisitor........Nicola Moscona
Celestial
Voice.........Shakeh Vartenissian
Friar...................Louis
Sgarro
Tebaldo.................Vilma Georgiou
Count of
Lerma..........Charles Anthony
Countess of Aremberg....Natalie
Kelepovska
Herald..................Gabor Carelli
Conductor...............Kurt
AdlerI'd always been curious about this performance and recently it was broadcast on the Sirius network and Dmitry recorded it for me. It's Eleanor Steber (above) who - as Elisabetta de Valois - makes the finest impression among the singers, with Richard Tucker and Jerome Hines both excellent as Don Carlo and his father, Philip II of Spain.
Back in the 1950s, DON CARLO was performed in four acts. The Fontainebleau Scene was something you read about in books; it wasn't til the Solti recording came out that I actually heard any of the music from that scene which came to be integrated into the Met's performances when a new production opened in 1979. For me the 4-act version is more succinct; the Fontainebleau scene is nice to have on a recording but musically I much prefer to have the opera open with the somber horn theme echoing among the vaults of the monastery of St. Juste. Purists will say it sets up the ensuing plot but operas have to start somewhere, and Carlo tells of his unhappy love for Elisabetta in the aria "Io la vidi..." which is moved to the St. Juste scene in the 4-act version. Well. enough about that for now.
DON CARLO didn't arrive at the Met until 1920 and even with Ponselle and Martinelli singing, it only lasted for fourteen performances. Feodor Chaliapin sang 3 performances of Philip II in 1922 (one on tour) and then it vanished from the Old Met stage til Rudolf Bing chose it as the first production of his regime in 1950. That production was used til the 1979 5-act setting supplanted it. Next season we are to have a new production.
Anyway, back to 1955: Kurt Adler, whose main job at the Met was as chorus master, sometimes took the baton to conduct. He was a routinier and he brings no special illumination to the score in this broadcast of DON CARLO. Kurt Adler had the distinction of being the last person to conduct at the Old Met: he took the podium at the end of that long and nostalgic evening to lead the entire Company and the audience in 'Auld Lang Syne'. He conducted at the New Met until 1972.
Would that we had a tenor like Richard Tucker today: his voice was clear, warm, beautifully projected and steeped in the Italianate style with appropriate traces of a sob interjected here and there. I saw him in everything from COSI FAN TUTTE to TOSCA and he never gave anything less than his best. Granted, as time went on his style became a bit more emphatic and his phrasing could get choppy but in one of the last things I heard him sing in the House, a BOHEME with Gabriella Tucci in 1971, he sang 'Che gelida manina' so persuasively that the audience rightly gave him an ovation. When he died suddenly in 1974, he was close to his 30th anniversary with the Company (745 performances) and had new roles in the planning stages. He's in superb voice for this DON CARLO.
Jerome Hines sounds quite splendid as Philip II; the basso - who was to have the longest career at the Met of any principal artist - is in fine vocal form and well-portrays both the power and heartbreak of the unhappy monarch. His great vocal 'duel' with the Grand Inquisitor (the grave-toned Nicola Moscona) is a high point of the performance, following as it does Hines's brooding, darkly sustained singing of 'Ella giammai m'amo'.
Blanche Thebom sounds little lighter in tonal weight that many Eboli' I have heard but she sings very well for the most part. The Canzone del Velo is limited to a single verse; later in the trio where Eboli vows to reveal Carlo's secret love for Elisabetta, Thebom blazes away convincingly. In her confession to the Queen, Thebom effectively lets her voice become throaty, as if choking on her own remorse. 'O don fatale' taxes her a bit but the central melodic section is lovely; she seems a little hasty in the final phrase. Throughout the performance, Thebom has passing moments where a touch of rasp is heard, but this is offset by her attractive and unforced lower range.
Ettore Bastiannini, whose tragic illness and early death were one of opera's great personal tragedies, had one of the most beautiful Italian baritone sounds ever produced. In this performance he starts unevenly: with his timbre attractive and his sense of dramatic involvement keen, he still tends to sing flat in the duet with Tucker. (All the more admiration for the tenor for holding to the correct pitch - it must be scary to harmonize with a colleague who is off). Bastiannini continues to have minor pitch problems as the performance goes forward but he improves vastly after the first scene and his great aria 'Per me giunta...' and his dying farewell to Don Carlo are beautifully sung and rouse the audience to cheers.
Met stalwart Louis Sgarro sings The Friar - I could never count the number of times I heard Milton Cross say the basso's name on broadcasts, nor the number of performances I saw in which Sgarro sang. From 1954 to 1975 he appeared on over 1,100 Met performances.
Eleanor Steber (listen to her as Butterfly here) makes such a wonderfully feminine Elisabetta - her voice soaring thru the music - with many finely-judged dynamic effects; she manages to sound both regal and vulnerable. She was a wonderfully detailed artist, always putting the right nuances on the melodic line and finishing everything off with a nice lustre. Her entire performance here is so moving that an early entry midway thru 'Tu che le vanita' and a slight rough spot in the final phrase (seemingly from emotional involvement causing tears and thus the voice faltering a bit) are readily forgiven. She's magnificent in the final duet where the marziale section is surprisingly included (it was generally cut at the Met at least whenever I saw or heard this production), and she ends the opera with a sustained, gleaming top-B.
This is one of my favorite CDs of Steber, and I also love her sensuous version of the Berlioz Nuits d'Ete (and also the composer's superb and rarely-performed 'La Captive' on the same disc, a Columbia reissue). Her classic recordings of VANESSA and Knoxville: Summer of 1915 are essentials, and her hard-to-find 1953 Bayreuth Elsa is magnificently sung.
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