Fromental Halévy (1799-1862)
La Juive (extracts)
rec. 1905-41
Malibran-Music MR575 [73]

La Juive is one of those operas whose modern neglect I genuinely regret and fail to understand; it was a great success in its day and throughout the 19C, exciting the admiration of both Mahler and Wagner. Eléazar was the role Caruso last learned and sang in 1920, following on from the Met revival of 1919, and great tenors who subsequently championed it include Martinelli and, in particular, Richard Tucker, who gave concert performances of it and recorded highlights for RCA; a fuller – but still not actually complete, as uncut it would last four hours – account of the work was recorded by Philips in 1986 and issued in 1989, with José Carreras’ Eléazar subsequently dubbed in, following a seven-day recording session after his recovery from leukaemia. (He does very well even if it is evident that his powers have waned a little in comparison with his youthful prime – and Varady is terrific, while the supporting cast are also admirable.) Only in the last couple of decades has La Juive begun to feature again in the repertoires of the world’s opera houses.

My own first acquaintance with the work derived from the aforementioned highlights’ disc with Tucker and a stellar cast including Martina Arroyo, Anna Moffo and Bonaldo Giaiotti; it should have been a complete performance but RCA got cold feet. A more complete, but still cut, recording of the 1973 live concert performance in London, conducted by Antonio Guadagno, is still available on the Opera d’Oro label; Tucker is superb in that, too, and the performance as a whole is very satisfying. It is a quintessential Parisian Grand Opera and in my estimation greatly superior to any of Meyerbeer’s compositions in the same genre, containing some lovely arias and sustaining dramatic tension throughout – although admittedly I make that judgement based on what are already judiciously devised abridgements; I can imagine that the five act version would emerge as bloated if all the choruses and the inevitable ballet were included.

As such, a disc of excerpts is welcome and this compilation of vintage tracks from Malibran certainly covers some of the best of the music, but concentrates on only three of the five leading roles: Eléazar, Rachel and Cardinal de Brogni; there is only one aria for Léopold and nothing from Princess Eudoxie. Nonetheless, it features an array of some of the greatest names in operatic history – in particular, Caruso, Vezzani, Ponselle and Pinza. By far the most (justly) celebrated track here is the final one: Caruso’s account of “Rachel, quand du Seigneur”; the weight, heft and intensity of his singing are astounding.

The first singer we hear is the firm, resonant bass of Paul Payan, sporting sonorous low notes, a trill and admirable evenness throughout his range – the same is of course true of his fellow-bass Ezio Pinza (track 7), but all the basses singing Brogni here have a clarity and openness of emission sadly absent in so many modern, woolly singers. Pierre Lamy sings the sole aria for Léopold heard here, disdaining any difficulty in reaching the high notes up to D. Louis Morrison’s tenor lacks the gravitas for Eléazar but like Lamy, has no trouble encompassing the high tessitura. The next track enjoys the best recorded sound on this disc and features Jan Peerce singing in excellent French while displaying the requisite heroic, baritonal ring to his voice; however, it is Vezzani who has the absolutely ideal timbre and manner – the “ping” of his top notes is thrilling. He is given three arias and excels in them all, and his sparkling rendering of them confirms my conviction that alongside Georges Thill he was the greatest French tenor ever; his recording of “Rachel, quand du Seigneur” is the only one I know to rival Caruso’s – and although his top notes are splendid, even he does not have Caruso’s extraordinary burnished, bronze resonance. He is paired in track 8 with bass Payan, who to my ears sounds as good as the legendary Marcel Journet – as does the richly histrionic Nazzareno de Angelis, singing in Italian on track 11; even more impressive is the richness of Juste Nivette’s low notes in his “Si la rigeur”, which comes through with remarkable immediacy for a recording made in 1905. A surprising inclusion is that from Rosa Ponselle, whose aria “Il va venir” gives her ample opportunity to deploy both her soaring head voice and her trenchant lower register and another surprise is the success of the relatively unknown Belgian tenor José de Trevi’s own “Rachel, quand du Seigneur”. Indeed, there are five separate accounts of that most celebrated of arias on this disc, and all are mightily impressive – even Max Lorenz and Josef Mann singing incongruously in German and Polish respectively (“Rette mich” just doesn’t seem right after “Sauvez-moi”). The duet on the penultimate track 18 is in awful sound from 1908 and is labelled “SCAMPINI-DAVID”, which I take to be an obtuse indication that this is a recording made by the partnership of tenor Augusto Scampini and soprano Cecilia David, who recorded for Gramophone Monarch Record in Milan around that time. Their singing, insofar as it may be discerned, is impassioned.

As ever with Malibran, the documentation is minimal but that won’t bother the opera aficionado who is likely to want this selection of classic, historic recordings.

Ralph Moore

Contents
01 – Cavatine “ Si la rigueur et la vengeance…” Paul PAYAN
02 – Sérénade “ Loin de son amie…” Pierre LAMY
03 – “ O mon Dieu… O ma fille chérie…” Louis MORISSON
04 – “ O Dieu, Dieu de nos pères…” Jan PEERCE – Dorothy SARNOFF
05 – “ Dieu, que ma voix tremblante…” César VEZZANI
06- “ Il va venir…” Rosa PONSELLE
07 – Anathème “ Vous qui du Dieu vivant….” Ezio PINZA
08 – “ L’ai-je bien entendu…” César VEZZANI – Paul PAYAN /
09 – “ Rachel, quand du Seigneur…Dieu m’éclaire…”César VEZZANI
10 – “ Rachel, quand du Seigneur…Dieu m’éclaire…”
11 – Anathème“ Vous, qui du Dieu vivant… ” Nazzareno de ANGELIS
12 – “ Il va venir…” Amelia PINTO
13 – Anathème “ Vous, qui du Dieu vivant… “ Francesco NAVARRINI
14 – “ Rachel, quand du Seigneur…” Max LORENZ
15 – “ Si la rigueur et la vengeance…” Richard MAYR
16 – “ Rachel, quand du Seigneur…” Josef MANN
17 – “ Si la rigueur et la vengeance…” Juste NIVETTE
18 – “ O ma fille chérie…” SCAMPINI – DAVID
19 – “ Rachel, quand du Seigneur…” Enrico CARUSO