Eleonora Buratto (soprano)
Indomita
Coro dell’Opera Carlo Felice Genova
Orchestra dell’Opera Carlo Felice Genova/Sesto Quatrini
Italian texts & English translations in booklet
rec. 2024, Opera Carlo Felice, Genova, Italy
Pentatone PTC5187409 [69]
I first both quote and paraphrase from the helpful notes by lyric soprano Eleonora Buratto and Nicola Cattò as an introduction to this, her solo debut album, in which she “pays tribute to the greatest composers and most insurmountable heroines of Italian nineteenth-century opera”, maintaining that she has “chosen to invest not in a self-referential album, but in a more coherent historical and theatrical project” and “to record five great scenes from operas in which I have already performed, or am about to perform on stage. It was this challenge that prompted the title of the album, Indomita, because each of the protagonists to whom I have lent my voice is an indomitable heroine (and woman)… To understand the programme assembled by Eleonora Buratto for this recital album, one must refer to a vocal classification created in 1949 for Maria Callas: the soprano drammatico d’agilità (dramatic, agile soprano), in reference to the Italian bel canto repertoire.”
However, as they go on to explain, that type of highly versatile voice was actually the norm for singers of the Italian operatic repertoire up until the mid 19C; hence the mouthwatering selection of programmatic excerpts here encompasses five works by three major composers over three decades from 1827 to 1857.
The reference to Callas of course immediately invites an inevitable – if inherently unfair – comparison. Does Buratto have the same trenchant lower register, the extreme high notes that Callas possessed – at least in the early years of her career – the extraordinary plangency and pliancy of voice, the range of tonal colour and deeply emotive, nuanced inflection of the sung text?
The recital opens very promisingly with an absolutely lovely orchestral introduction to the scene from Il pirata, crowned with a sensitively delivered cor anglais solo, its grainy timbre contrasting pleasingly with the velvety strings – beautiful playing and conducting in very full, immediate sound, as if we were in a stalls seat.
Then another pleasant surprise: the size and depth of Buratto’s dark, smoky soprano, and the instant plunges into something approaching a properly developed, lower register; this is a voice which is indeed at first vaguely reminiscent of divas of the Callas, Sass and Miricioiu ilk – slightly wild and far removed from the “tweety bird” sound which is too often substituted for an authentic dramatic soprano. Where it is lacking, however, is in sheer roundness and beauty of tone; it must be said that she sounds like a mature singer and indeed, she is in her early forties here. Some disappointment ensues with the slightly choppy line of the cantilena “Col sorriso d’innocenza”; her vibrato is somewhat intrusive and the lack of steadiness and a certain breathy hoarseness disrupt the legato; in compensation, her attack on top notes is highly dramatic. She copes, albeit a tad effortfully, with the coloratura of the cabaletta “Oh, Sole! ti vela” and finishes with a top C – not the purest sound, it must be said, but fully committed; she is no crooner.
Anna Bolena presents another woman driven to mental breakdown – somewhat giving the lie to the idea that they are “indomitable” seeing that they are victims of grief and betrayal? No matter; Anna’s cantabile “Al dolce guidami”, again prefaced by a plaintive cor anglais melody, is one of Donizetti’s happiest creations and Buratto’s line is smoother here. She launches into the grand cabaletta “Coppia iniqua” fearlessly, although one gets the impression the voice is only just under control and I suspect that it comes over better in live performance, but in repeated listenings of a recording the imprecisions, wildness and incipient flap could become wearisome. To check my response, I played the same showpiece as sung by Callas, Gencer and Sills. Buratto is very good but the other three are all superior; Callas’ voice in particular has greater centre and solidity both in alt and in the lower register, and Sills surprises by the combination of agility, purity of emission, and heft even on low notes.
The question of competition is also problematic when it comes to Lucrezia Borgia, as there are excellent studio recordings by Sutherland and Caballé. The harshness and breathiness of her passagework are again balanced by the abandon of her dramatic involvement but it is not a voice I “drink in”.
The two Verdi items are first complementary in that they both feature a preghiera, then present two contrasting emotions; fury and remorse, respectively. Buratto sings the scena for a second Lucrezia in full, sweeping voice; she is never reticent here and her dramatic involvement is always in evidence but her climactic top note is unfortunate and should have been retaken, as it is of very wavering, indeterminate pitch.
Mina’s aria from Aroldo, “Ah dagli scanni eterei”, is one of Verdi’s finest and a personal favourite; I especially love it sung by Ángeles Gulín in a live recording of Stiffelio, the earlier incarnation of the opera, and by Sylvia Sass in the studio version. Carol Vaness, too, in the studio recording of Aroldo, is impressive. Here, I fear, the comparison is very much in Buratto’s disfavour, as the combination of delicacy, power and beauty of tone Sass, Gulín and Vaness all bring to the music is overpoweringly effective, whereas Buratto sounds rather effortful and gasps for breath before phrases which feature some blowsy top notes.
The low, declamatory start of the final aria “Ah dal sen” does not sit firmly in the meat of her voice as her lower register sounds weak – one imagines how Callas would have delivered it – but her soaring top notes are impressive and make a rousing conclusion to a recital which is decidedly a mixed bag.
It pains me to say that the supporting comprimario singers here are uniformly awful but at least their contributions are mercifully brief. In a world currently lamentably short of star-quality voices of the kind abundantly on circuit in the 50s and 60s, Ms Buratto is a welcome presence – but if I am assessing her in the context of more than a century of recordings of great voices, I cannot say that she is exceptional.
Ralph Moore
Contents & other singers:
Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835)
Il pirata (1827)
Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
Anna Bolena (1830)
Percy/Hervey Didier Pieri (tenor)
Smeton: Irene Savignano (mezzo-soprano)
Lord Rochefort: Giovanni Battista Parodi (bass)
Lucrezia Borgia (1833)
Duca Alfonso: Giovanni Battista Parodi (bass)
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
I due Foscari (1844)
Aroldo (1857)
Godvino: Didier Pieri (tenor)
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