Bass Pol Plançon
Depend Rodolfo is a pivotal determine within the plot of Bellini’s La sonnambula. It’s to his quarters on the inn the place the sleepwalking Amina innocently wanders. The tarty, scheming Lisa, who has the hots for Amina’s betrothed Elvino, summons him to Rodolfo’s room to behold the stunning state of affairs. However earlier than these mixed-up shenanigans of the younger and the stressed happen, Rodolfo, returning to the Tyrolean village, reminisces on his idyllic youth:
| Il mulino, il fonte…il bosco!… E vicin la fattoria!…Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni, in cui lieti, in cui sereni sì tranquillo i dì passai della prima gioventù! Cari luoghi, io vi trovai, ma quei dì non trovo più. |
The mill…the stream…the woods.. And the farmhouse close by! I see you once more, oh beautiful locations the place the joyful days of serenity and tranquility handed of my early youth! Expensive locations, although I’ve discovered you, however these days I’ll by no means discover once more. |
If ever there have been a definitive litmus take a look at of the operatic bass’s vocal method and musical sensitivity, it’s “Vi ravviso.” In A flat main, in 4/4 time and its lithe, elegant line sustained primarily across the high area of the workers, there’s actually no different prefer it within the bel canto realm for bass; it virtually unfolds like a cantabile soprano aria, corresponding to Amina’s “Ah, non credea.”
Regular breath emission, an unbroken, long-lined legato, eager, dynamic phrasing, tonal magnificence, and textual sensitivity are the requisites to impart the perfect effectiveness of this peerlessly stunning aria. As well as, sustaining the slurs Bellini wrote in are important to its melody; many fashionable basses ignore these markings, and with out these portamenti, the aria is bereft of that light lilt of expressive nostalgia redolent within the piece. Too, the concluding cadenza have to be negotiated with easy grace and present consciousness of its emotional curve; many basses fail outright on each counts, with a bumpy, or heavy-handed, or aspirated zip-through.
By a number of many years of listening to this aria by practically each bass of observe, hailing from the daybreak of recording and as much as the current with numerous renditions by “up-and-comers” on YouTube, solely a handful have emerged with true distinction – those that compel you to return to them many times.
Historic accounts range. Tancredi Pasero is tough of vibrato and effortful in supply. Chaliapin and Christoff are idiosyncratic. From the mid-century on, through the rising bel canto revival, there are various honest, respectable, however not important accounts. A totality of means is extra elusive than one may garner; many battle to merely preserve the road unblemished, targeted, and safe, or they merely lack an indefinable “voice-face” (Steane’s term-description). When that occurs, they fail to linger within the reminiscence, via maybe no fault of their very own; this aria, all informed, is a fiend, so uncovered and needing to be contained, and but calling for a capability to make it imaginative and emotionally compelling. Others merely can’t deal with it even adequately, as within the exponent of the Met’s most current staging. It should not be loud, stentorian, or overly emphatic in supply. The temper of the piece is the beautiful, nostalgic craving of a distinguished gentleman.
Pol Plançon
This survey should start with (so far as I do know) the earliest documented rendition, from 1903, by the French bass Pol Plançon. For any aficionado of not solely nice singing, however of a bygone means of singing fashion, a traversal via Plançon’s recordings on YouTube is an absolute should. (Should you can nonetheless discover it, Ward Marston’s very good Romophone 2 CD set of the bass’s work, remastered, is value looking for out.) I consider Plançon’s is among the many final documented cases of the true bel canto fashion. We are able to’t be completely sure, after all, however while you hear him zip via essentially the most troublesome coloratura passages, roulades, and actual trills with an astonishing aptitude and fleetness that you simply simply don’t generally hear in basses, it’s a discernible glimpse into what was then changing into a quickly extinct fashion of vocalism. Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, and Verismo, requiring extra ballast, quantity, and measurement in tonal means, had already lengthy ushered out the good a part of the bel canto repertoire by the beginning of the twentieth century – and with it a completely completely different fashion of singing.
That apart, Plançon’s rendition divides opinion. The primitive recording course of for one factor produces that characteristically dim, hazy acoustic that made most voices sound, effectively, odd, typically “straight” in tone (the excessive notes of sopranos typically appeared like a child’s wail). Vocal aficionados, although, have discovered to coach and situation themselves to adjusting to the funky sound (even on the Maplesons), as a result of their historic worth is important to understanding the historic precedents and legacy of singing: we’d not wish to stay with out them.
Then, too, no conductor of at present would allow the extreme portamenti, rubati, and laissez-faire strategy to notice values; Plançon leads the pianist, not vice-versa. There’s one thing important occurring right here. The strategy to this free-wheeling musicality doesn’t within the least come throughout as self-indulgent; if something it sounds natural, welling out of Plançon’s consciousness readily, spontaneously. It’s primarily based on, relatively, a sublimity of a purely particular person inventive expression. It’s such a telling doc of its stylistic mien, the place the rigidly strict, four-square methodology of phrasing is anathema to the musical sensibility.
For me, this recording is a digital window right into a bygone method of singing, predating what ultimately grew into the age of fascistic conductorial literalness in rating presentation, resulting in a sort of inventive anonymity: you typically can’t discern arresting, singular vocal individuality as of late. The best artists, you knew who they had been, pronto, from a mere half-note. Every little thing is so confoundingly, boringly appropriate these days. In artwork, the motto must be, give me liberties or give me loss of life!
However, oh my sainted aunt, what individuality of utterance leaps out of the acoustical dim murk right here, oozing appeal and character. Plançon is unabashedly sentimental (however not mawkish), endearing, and but dignified, even aristocratic. Aristocratic is strictly this type of singing.
Cesare Siepi
Cesare Siepi made a positive recording of the aria in 1948, nevertheless it’s his account within the full 1952 set of the opera that is still the near-definitive supreme within the fashionable period. Siepi’s strategy to the singing of it’s fashionable, too, an entire departure from Plançon’s in that it’s strictly held to tempo, observe values, and constancy to the rating; the slurs, completely important in Bellinian singing and infrequently ignored in fashionable efficiency, are exquisitely included right here.
What distinguishes this account is the sheer molten fantastic thing about Siepi’s tone, his supremely elegant phrasing; he has a means of respiratory the emotion into the elegiac line of textual content: “i dì passai” within the sixth bar is especially sleek. The concluding cadenza is taken a piacere, and, most significantly, although technically impeccable, manages to impart a becoming emotional end, akin to a wistful sigh.
Plinio Clabassi
Out of Italy in 1956 got here a lip-synched film of the opera that includes the younger Anna Moffo. To my sudden shock and pleasure, the Rodolfo of Plinio Clabassi is without doubt one of the best ever. Nearer in tonal high quality to Plançon than to Siepi, Clabassi comes closest to the latter within the fashionable style of adherence to the rating values, plus a marked and instinctive eloquence of supply. The tone is unusually candy for a bass, and he spins it out with great sensitivity. Clabassi, relegated to essaying on the principle minor roles in a number of recordings, emerges as a Rodolfo of true “dark-horse” distinction – basses much more well-known and famend can’t sing this piece this effectively. The bodily portrayal, too, is dignified and gentlemanly.
Federico De Michelis
Whereas looking on YouTube, I got here throughout this rendition a couple of years in the past by the Argentine bass-baritone Federico De Michelis, in a recital from 2014. De Michelis, a flexible artist who additionally dabbles in jazz and tango, has by no means essayed the position of Rodolfo, however he masters the necessities excess of most, to the impact of inflicting me to recollect him lengthy after the primary listening to. What impressed me about this account is how a lot care De Michelis places into the lyrical values of Bellini’s traces, after which wedding ceremony that successfully with the sensitively intoned textual content. The slurs are gracefully notated, and the studying is heartfelt and honest.
Mirco Palazzi
Mirco Palazzi, an excellent coloratura bass, has been essaying Rodolfo for a number of years now. Palazzi’s most up-to-date traversal hails from Budapest in current months. Although he’s an in any other case sturdy, sterling artist, I want Palazzi didn’t really feel compelled to sing out so extrovertly, on the loud aspect, relatively placing it up for grabs. You’ll be able to inform he realizes the import of what he’s singing, however the sentiment of the aria’s temper will not be interiorized, missing wistfulness and craving. The slurs are largely ignored, and the prevailing impression is of the stolid and routine. Included right here is the cabaletta “Tu non sai” which is given in full, second verse flippantly adorned, and is most completed; right here is the place Palazzi makes a extra constructive impression. If solely the gradual melody had been extra heartfelt and distinctive.
Lukas Lemcke
Over a yr in the past, I had essentially the most nice shock on YouTube encountering this younger German bass, Lukas Lemcke. My thoughts reeled discovering Lemcke was all of twenty-two when he recorded the aria on this video, what seems to be a web based audition calling-card. Basses twice his age typically don’t sound this poised, this musical, this vocally resplendent, this musically delicate, this completed. Lemcke has an distinctive tonal magnificence, resonant, wealthy, and but clear. No woofy breathiness, synthetic darkening, or throaty rumbling. The voice is all of a chunk, with free, unencumbered highs, and rock-solid lows. Integrity of line, well-bound, and heeding the slurs. There’s sincerity and enchantment within the character, in addition to communicative intent. A few of the higher-lying traces may profit from a slight modulation of quantity, however that is mere quibbling – this younger man is off to a smashing star to his profession.
