Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Il trovatore, Opera in 4 acts
Manrico, Aureliano Pertile (tenor)
Leonora, Maria Carena (soprano)
Conte di Luna, Apollo Granforte (baritone)
Azucena, Irene Minghini-Cattaneo (mezzo-soprano)
La Scala, Milan Opera Chorus and Orchestra/Gino Nastrucci
rec. October/November 1930, Conservatorio, Milan
Restoration: Mark Obert-Thorn
Pristine Audio PACO220 [2 CDs: 118]

I am delighted to have Pristine’s transfer of this recording to complement the other Verdi opera recorded in Milan by HMV in 1930 with the great Aureliano Pertile in the tenor roles. I reviewed their transfer of that Aida recording (review) exactly two years ago, and was very enthusiastic about it, and I am equally so about this Il trovatore.

Aida had been recorded in an absurd bit of competitiveness by both HMV and Columbia within a month of each other in Milan in 1928. Astonishingly, they did exactly the same thing two years later, when Columbia recorded Il trovatore in Milan in September 1930 and HMV did the same in October/November. When almost any composition can be had for free on YouTube today, it is very difficult for younger listeners to understand just how expensive it was to buy complete recordings of large-scale works even forty or fifty years ago, let alone a century. Both the HMV and Columbia were issued on their lower price labels, though Columbia’s set was still substantially cheaper: 14 discs at 4s 6d (22½p) per disc, as opposed to HMV’s 15 discs at 6s 6d (32½p) each. This meant that the Columbia cost £3-3s (£3.15) for the set and the HMV was £4-17s-6d (£4.87½). According to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator, £1 in 1930 had the purchasing power of £82.53 in 2025. This makes the cost of the Columbia set the equivalent of £260 and the HMV of £402! It makes me blush to think that only last week I was looking at the cost of new, full-price CDs and thinking how expensive they had become.

In the Aida sets, the quality of the casts was fairly balanced, but in the Trovatore, the palm definitely goes to HMV.  Columbia’s Merli was a fine tenor, but is definitely outclassed by Pertile, and their mezzo, Zinetti, though similarly very good, was up against one of the great Italian mezzos in Minghini-Cattaneo. The remaining singers were much more on a par, none of them being in the top flight, and it was a great pity that Columbia did not use Stracciari or Formichi for di Luna. HMV did not have an outstanding Italian baritone on their books at that time, but, of those they had, I think Benvenuto Franci would probably have made a more convincing job than Granforte.

Pertile sings with a splendid, forthright virility which does not preclude poetry and introspection. His enunciation of the text is wonderfully incisive, for example in the conversational parts of his scene with Azucena in Act 2 Sc.1. Although fine, his “Ah sì ben mio” does not quite have the legato and refinement of a truly classic version (and is not helped by being taken just that bit too quickly), but it is dynamically varied and dramatically alive throughout. His part in the “Miserere” and the scene with Azucena at the start of Act 4 Sc. 2 are most sensitively done, with a lovely legato. He does not quite have the extraordinary line and breath control of Martinelli’s incomparable live 1936 recording of that final scene, but he is very fine. In the overtly dramatic parts he is absolutely splendid. The “Di geloso amor” trio in Act 1 Sc. 2 is thrilling, as is, unsurprisingly, “Di quella pira”. In these prissy and pedantic days, there are those who will purse their lips at its being taken down a semitone to B, but transposition was invented for singers. I would infinitely sooner have it transposed down than experience a tenor in difficulty for the sake of a semitone. At least Pertile’s B are splendid notes, which is more than the one I heard from Michael Fabiano at Covent Garden a couple of weeks ago was. He gave us one top B at the very end of the cabaletta, which was clearly clung to by the finger nails at the cost of great discomfort on the part of both singer and audience.

Maria Carena was hardly a great name even at the time, and while she is perfectly adequate as Leonora, she would be no-one’s go-to for the role. The tone quality is rather shrill and with little depth of tone, which is fairly typical of those Italian sopranos of the time who did not really venture outside their native land. Her biggest problem is that she finds it almost impossible to sing really quietly at the top. Nor does her flickering vibrato help with much of the graceful, long-breathed lines and reflective quality which so much of Leonora’s role demands. “D’amor sull’ali rosee” is a distinctly mixed bag. As usual at that period, the cabaletta “Tu vedrai” is cut (as it is in the Columbia set) which I think would probably have suited her quite well. Her fioriture is unexpectedly fleet and articulate. Like Pertile, she is much more at home in the dramatic sections such as the “Mira d’acerbe lagrime… Vivrà contende il giubilo” scene with di Luna in Act 4 Sc. 1. Here she is very exciting. 

De Luna is the baritone Apollo Granforte, and though it is rather a cheap jibe to say that his name is an example of nominative determinism, there is a fair amount of truth in the observation. He has a splendid voice, even and solid from top to bottom, and if his tone does not have the absolute distinction of Stracciari, it has sufficient blade to be effective in the part. If only he had been a rather more sensitive and intelligent musician he could have been a really fine singer, but his default position is “stand and deliver”. This works pretty well in “Di geloso amor” and the Act 4 duet, but it is less acceptable in “Il balen”. This aria starts quite well, with a creditable piano and legato , but it isn’t long before the big guns come out and he resorts to a braying fortissimo. He seems not to have any idea that this is, in effect, a love song. The cabaletta, “Per  me l’ora fatale”,  and the duet referred to above play much more to his strengths.

Minghini-Cattaneo’s Azucena is simply tremendous, she is one of the great Italian mezzos, the forerunner to Simionato and Cossotto. She has a superbly resonant chest register, though she does not force it into baritone quality, and it is well integrated into the voice as a whole. The top is also thrilling, with absolute security and no loosening of the vibrato at all. She has a very fine legato and sense of line when the music requires it. Every aspect of her singing of Azucena is pretty well as good as you could want: the duets with Manrico, “Stride la vampa”, “Condotta ell’era in ceppi”, “Giornio poveri” – all are outstandingly good. I suppose if I had to find fault, there could be more genuinely pianissimo singing, but this is a tiny caveat. Listen to the final scene; she gives full expression to the whole gamut of Azucena’s constantly changing emotions. 

The Ferrando of Bruno Carmassi is also excellent. His is a real old-school Italian bass voice, with its flicker vibrato and blade, unlike almost anyone you will hear today. His incisive enunciation and real sense of story-telling are just what is needed in the opening scene (OK, perhaps he’s a little over-emphatic in places, but that’s a fault on the right side). He is equally commanding in Act 3; his unmasking of Azucena is finely done with dark tone and trenchant enunciation.

One of the surprising aspects of both the HMV Aida and Il trovatore recordings is the excellence of the chorus and orchestra. Having for years listened to acoustic recordings which the label tells me are accompanied by the “Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan”, but whose musical standard would have them laughed out of the opera house today, I came with no great expectations. In fact, the orchestra is really fine; the punch and precision of ensemble are remarkable, and one can really believe that this is the orchestra trained by Toscanini. There is real snap, vitality and precision to the beginning of Act 3, and the chorus is also committed and resonant. It came as a great surprise to me to learn from Pristine’s note that, apart from two sides, the conductor is not Carlo Sabajno, the man who had been HMV’s house conductor for 25 years by this time and whose name is on all the labels and in the catalogue, but Gino Nastrucci. I had come across this name on a small number of Italian HMV records from the 1930s, but had no idea that he was Sabajno’s assistant. An even greater surprise was just how good he is. It is a superb performance, full of excitement and control, and the orchestral excellence mentioned above must be to a considerable extent his influence. I have already mentioned that I think some of his tempi are slightly too fast, but that could well be simply because of the restrictions of 78 side length rather than a free choice of tempo. Did he have a career outside the recording studio? I could find no details from a quick Wikipedia search.

Another unexpectedly pleasant surprise was how good the sound is. For a recording approaching its centenary, the depth, clarity, presence and dynamic range of the sound is extraordinary. The voices ring out splendidly, and there is almost no surface noise. There is occasionally some end-of-side distortion, for example at the end of “Per me l’ora fatale”, but overall I cannot imagine any but a mere hi-fi nut finding the recording quality in any way a barrier to enjoyment. Mark Obert-Thorn deserves the highest praise for his resurrection of this performance.

I often think that Il trovatore is the quintessential Verdi opera: the driving rhythm, the glorious melodies, the melodrama, the sheer animal excitement wedded to depth of feeling is a totality which no-one else quite achieves, and this performance, despite its small faults, captures its qualities in a way that few others do.

Paul Steinson

Other cast
Ferrando , Bruno Carmassi (bass); Inez, Olga de Franco (soprano); Ruiz and Un messo, Giordano Callegari (tenor); Vecchio zingaro, Antonio Gelli (bass)

Previous reviews:  Göran Forsling ~ (December 2024) ~ Ralph Moore (February 2025) ~ Mike Parr (April 2025)