The Golden Age of Singing Vol. 1, 1900 – 1910
50 Years of Great Voices on Record
rec. 1901-1913
Contents beneath review
Nimbus Prima Voce NI 70501 [2 CDs: 154]

Volume 2 of this anthology was positively reviewed here on MusicWeb a full twenty-five years ago, but not this first volume. As John Steane observes in his note to this edition, citing Compton Mackenzie writing a hundred years ago, these recordings may be venerable but the fidelity and clarity of singing directly into the gramophone horn were remarkable compared with attempts to capture orchestral and instrumental sound, especially when treated to the Nimbus technique of reproducing the recording played on a large gramophone using thorn needles in a spacious room; the result is indeed thrillingly immediate.

As I have many times observed in previous reviews, despite the ability of the artists to inhabit their roles, these voices often sound homogeneous in that absolutely none of them exhibits any wobble, screech, throatiness or grating tonal shifts; each is warm, pure and rounded of tone, with smoothly integrated registers, impeccable technique and pellucid diction. Baritones such as Ancona and Battistini sound very similar indeed – virtually indistinguishable – but that is because their singing is essentially perfect. We have absolutely nothing like this plethora of first-rate voices today, despite isolated incidences of brilliance. The one feature which could be objectionable to modern taste is the frequency of a comparatively fast vibrato as exhibited in singers such as tenors Bonci, Anselmi and Tamagno – the original Otello – but that is infinitely preferable to the slow pulse or caprino bleat which afflicts too many singers today.

It is hard to single out exceptional recordings among so many voices of such quality and I will not refer to every item here, just select a few highlights. It is immediately interesting to hear Nikolay Figner in the first track, employing a technique we might associate with later Russian tenors such as Kozlovsky and Lemeshev of deploying soft head voice so plangently – and we also hear superb technique at the end of CD 2 from two more Russian tenors, Smirnov and Sobinov, the former executing a remarkable diminuendo on a top C in an aria from Mefistofele. Not to be outdone, Fernando de Lucia does the same on top notes in “Il sogno” from Massenet’s Manon. Track 2 of the first disc features the soft, dark, buzzing sound of the French bass Pol Plançon, its individuality rather contradicting my generalisation about the similarity of great voices of that era. How elegant are the French baritones Maurel and Renaud, too – what has happened to that French school of singing? I found the duet by Burzio and De Luca from La Gioconda opening the second disc to be particularly impressive – he biting and intense, she plunging into her lower register, as do all the great sopranos here, exemplified by Melba and Calvé – although I always suspect that piping purity of the former never took as well as some to the primitive recording engineering. No survey of great singing would be complete without the inclusion of Titta Ruffo and Enrico Caruso; the latter a miracle of youthful power and nuance, the former exhibiting his bronze tone and superhuman resonance. Destinn is commanding and huge-breathed in her tragic Madama Butterfly aria. The great Dame Clara (six-foot-in-her-socks) Butt is represented by an aria from Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia which will already be familiar to most collectors and is always both a hoot and a pleasure to hear again.

You may drop in on any aria here and listen to singing of unparalleled – and largely extinct – excellence.

Ralph Moore

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Contents:
Tchaikovsky: The Queen of Spades, Op. 68: Forgive Me, Heavenly Being
Nikolay Figner (tenor)
Flotow: Martha: Porter Song
Edouard de Reszke (bass)
Bellini: La sonnambula: Il mulino, il fonte…Vi ravvioso, o luoghio ameni
Pol Plançon (bass)
Verdi: Otello: Niun mi tema
Francesco Tamagno (tenor)
Donizetti: L’elisir d’amore
Enrico Caruso (tenor)
Verdi: Aida: Fuggiam gli ardori inospiti
Celestina Boninsegna (soprano) & Giovanni Valls (tenor)
Verdi: Otello:
Era la notte
Victor Maurel (baritone)
Credo in un Dio crudel
Eugenio Giraldoni (baritone)
Wagner: Lohengrin, WWV 75: Elsa’s Dream
Félia Litvinne (soprano)
Donizetti: Don Pasquale: Quel gardo il cavaliere…So anch’io la virtu magica
Rosina Storchio (soprano)
Verdi: Ernani: O sommo Carlo
Mattia Battistini (baritone) with Emilia Corsi (soprano), Luigi Colazza (tenor) & Aristodemo Sillich (bass)
Verdi: Luisa Miller: Ah fede negar potessi…Quando le sere al placido
Alessandro Bonci (tenor)
Gounod: Roméo et Juliette, CG 9: Je veux vivre dans ce rêve
Emma Eames (soprano)
Donizetti: L´elisir d´amore: Chiedi all’ aura lusinghiera
Maria Galvany (soprano) & Aristodemo Giorgini (tenor)
Mozart: Die Zauberflöte, K.620: O Isis und Osiris
Wilhelm Hesch (bass)
Glinka: A Life for the Tsar: They Guess the Truth
Vladimir Kastorsky (bass)
Bellini: La sonnambula: Ah, non credea mirarti
Adelina Patti (soprano)
Massenet: Le roi de Lahore: Promesse de mon avenir
Maurice Renaud (baritone)
Meyerbeer: Le prophète: Sopra Berta l’amor mio
Francesco Vignas (tenor)
Donizetti: La favorita: A tanto amor
Mario Ancona (baritone)
Donizetti: Don Pasquale: Sogno soave e casto
Giuseppe Anselmi (tenor)
Ponchielli: La gioconda, Op. 9: Cosi mantieni i patto?
Eugenia Burzio (soprano) & Giuseppe de Luca (baritone)
Bizet: L’amour est un oiseau rebelle ‘Habanera’ (from Carmen)
Emma Calvé (soprano)
Massenet: Manon: Il sogno
Fernando de Lucia (tenor)
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, K.492: Heil’ge Quelle
Lilli Lehmann (soprano)
Donizetti: Lucrezia Borgia: Di pescatore ignobile
Francesco Marconi (tenor)
Verdi: Caro nome (from Rigoletto)
Dame Nellie Melba (soprano)
Verdi: Simon Boccanegra: A te l’estremo addio…Il lacerato spirito
Francesco Navarrini (bass)
Erkel: Hunyadi László: Ah rebéges
Lillian Nordica (soprano)
Thomas, Ambroise: Hamlet: O vin, discaccia la tristezza
Titta Ruffo (baritone)
Puccini: Madama Butterfly: Con onor muore
Emmy Destinn (soprano)
Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots: A ce mot
Olimpia Boronat (soprano)
Rossini: La calunnia è un venticello (from Il barbiere di Siviglia)
Adamo Didur (bass)
Massenet: Ah! Tout est bien fini… O souverain (from Le Cid)
Vilhelm Herold (tenor)
Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots: O beaus pays de la Touraine
Antonina Nezhdanova (soprano)
Wagner: Rienzi, WWV 49: Gerechter Gott!
Ernestine Schumann-Heink (contralto)
Rossini: Bel raggio lusinghier (from Semiramide)
Marcella Sembrich (soprano)
Donizetti: Lucrezia Borgia: Il segreto per esser felice
Clara Butt (contralto)
Wagner: Götterdämmerung, WWV 86D: Fliegt heim ihr Raben
Johanna Gadski (soprano)
Verdi: Falstaff: Quand’ ero paggio
Antonio Scotti (baritone)
Goldmark: Die Königin Von Saba, Op. 27: Magische Töne
Leo Slezak (tenor)
Boito: Giunto sul passo estremo (from Mefistofele)
Dmitri Smirnov (tenor)
Rimsky Korsakov: May Night: Sleep, my Beauty
Leonid Sobinov (tenor)
Hatton: Simon the Cellarer
Sir Charles Santley (baritone)