Donizetti: La favorite (Naxos) - MusicWeb International

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
La favorite (1840)
Léonor de Guzman, Annalisa Stroppa (mezzo-soprano)
Fernand, Javier Camarena (tenor)
Alphonse XI,Florian Sempey (baritone)
Balthazar, Evgeny Stavinsky (bass)
Coro Donizetti Opera, Coro dell’Accademia Teatro alla Scala
Orchestra Donizetti Opera/Riccardo Frizza
rec. live, 15 & 18 November 2022, Donizetti Opera Festival, Teatro Donizetti, Bergamo
Reviewed as 96-24 WAV download
The French libretto and an English translation available online
Naxos 8.660549-51 [3 CDs: 179]

La favorite is a grand opera in four acts written for Paris in 1840, and as such there is an obligatory ballet sequence in the second act. The music, which is included complete in this recording, as far as I understand, is okey but sounds more dutiful than truly inspired, but for repeated listening it can easily be skipped , since it halts the progression of the story unnecessarily. The score is a bit uneven, but there is a profusion of lovely and melodious arias and scenes, and with four, good, bel canto singers in the main roles it can be a treat to watch and listen to. It hasn’t been recorded too frequently, even though there was a more or less complete recording as early as 1912 on 21 Pathé records. Apart from that, there wasn’t anything until we reach the LP era in the 1950s, and quite a lot of what was issued during the next decades was mainly live performances. My colleague Ralph Moore made a survey of Donizetti operas on records a couple of years ago, and I refer readers to it for an overview (here). Most of the recordings are of the Italian version, and the French original exists in only one studio recording, which on the other hand is excellent. I came late to this opera, and that was through a live recording from Genoa in 1976 with Viorica Cortez, Alfredo Kraus, Renato Bruson and Cesare Siepi, and I still take it down from the shelves from time to time.

The present recording is also a live recording, from the Donizetti Opera Festival in Bergamo, conducted by Riccardo Frizza, who has been music director there since 2017. Given his deep involvement in the music of Donizetti, one can rest assured that the reading here is as idiomatic as one could wish, and his choral and orchestral forces are also well versed in this repertoire. It being a grand opera, there is a lot to do for the chorus, which is alert and has bite. The recording is fully worthy of the event, well balanced and few extraneous noises – apart from applause after every solo, which could have been faded out a bit earlier. All in all the prerequisites for a great performance of La favorite are favourable.

But that is to settle the account without paying attention to the soloists, and here comes the hangup. When I looked through the cast list and saw the name Javier Camarena in the role of Fernand I was enthusiastic. Having heard him as Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia at his Metropolitan debut a dozen years ago, and reviewed his Donizetti recital last year, I felt that this was a rare talent in the wake of tenore di grazia like Tito Schipa, Cesare Valletti, Luigi Alva, and closer in time Juan Diego Florez: the same care over nuances, the same exquisite pianissimos. He also had brilliant top notes, which I thought he pushed a little too much in his recent Tosti recital. He didn’t include anything from La favorite in his Donizetti recital, and maybe he pushes a little too much at places also here, even giving the impression that he is strained, but by and large this is great lyrical tenor singing, and his Ange si pur in the last act is, rightly, rewarded with the greatest ovation of the evening.

Unfortunately one listens in vain for the same excellence from his co-singers. Annalisa Stroppa in the title role has a powerful voice and sings with dramatic conviction, but her singing is afflicted with a heavy vibrato – so often these days disfiguring singers – and her tone in the higher reaches of the voice tends to be acidic. Likewise Florian Sempey is shaky and strained, dramatic and strong but rather crude. It is a remedy to listen to Evgeny Stavinsky’s sonorous and warm bass in the role of Balthazar. The minor roles can’t be faulted, but the weaknesses are too great to give the recording a wholehearted recommendation. As so often when hearing a performance without actually seeing it, one notices defects that elude those in the audience who, judging from the ovations, highly appreciated it. But I can only report what I hear, so even though I liked Camarena’s achievement I advise prospective buyers to sample first, and if you share my reservations, go for Marcello Viotti’s RCA recording from 1999 with Vesselina Kasarova and Ramon Vargas in the leading roles.

Göran Forsling

Buying this recording via a link below generates revenue for MWI, which helps the site remain free