A warm, expressive performance
Victoria de los Angeles (Butterfly) Jussi Björling, Antonio Sacchetti et al; Orchestra del Teatro dell’opera di Roma/gabriele Santini
Warner Classics 763 6342
It feels invidious choosing a ‘best’ Madam Butterfly with so many fine interpretations available, most of them big-budget affairs from the golden age of long-play recording. One cannot help but notice, incidentally, how few contemporary singers are being given the opportunity to record the work, bar the occasional megastar such as Angela Gheorghiu (creamily gorgeous on the 2009 Warner set, though Jonas Kaufmann is too baritonal a Pinkerton for my taste). Happily, the great singers of midcentury were superlative in this opera and any of the ‘runners up’ (right) would make an equally worthy top choice.
But decisiveness is required here, and my personal preference is for the 1959 set from Victoria de los Angeles and Jussi Björling under the baton of Gabriele Santini. I’ll confess: this is the recording that introduced me to Puccini’s opera, so it is, to my mind, the ‘urtext’ and my affection for it is boundless, though the Freni/pavarotti set – one of the two recordings conducted by Herbert von Karajan – gives it a very close run for its money. The orchestral details of Santini’s recording may not be quite as vividly captured in the remastering here as in the two Karajan sets, but the
Italian conductor’s reading of the score is highly expressive and often playful. It is a performance that exudes tremendous warmth, both orchestrally and vocally, and there is an ease and naturalness to the sound-quality that gives the listener a sensation akin to wallowing in a comforting bath.
This was the second studio recording de los Angeles made of Butterfly with the Opera di Roma (the first being made in 1954 with tenor Giuseppe di Stefano) and to my ears it is the more emotionally engaging of the two. De los Angeles is a singer to whom you lose
Velvet voiced and beguiling, de los Angeles is a singer to whom you lose your heart
your heart – velvet-voiced and beguiling whether in romantic, coquettish or griefstricken mode. Her ‘Un bel dì’ is initially vulnerable, growing in maturity and confidence across its course. Björling is a dignified but far from cold Pinkerton, thrilling on the high notes and boasting a beautifully smooth, even line. Above all, nowhere else on disc is Puccini’s heady love duet sung with such palpable ecstasy, bringing out the sheer eroticism of the piece to tremendous effect as the voices ebb and flow, rising inexorably to their fever-pitch of excitement. This performance never fails to ravish.