Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Turandot (1926)
La principessa Turandot – Maria Callas (soprano)
L’imperatore Altoum – Giuseppe Nessi (tenor)
Timur – Nicola Zaccaria (bass)
Il principe ignoto (Calaf) – Eugenio Fernandi (tenor)
Liù – Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (soprano)
Ping – Mario Borriello (baritone)
Pang – Renato Ercolani (tenor)
Pong – Piero de Palma (tenor)
Un mandarino – “Giulio Mauri” [Nicola Zaccaria] (bass)
Il principino di Persia – Piero de Palma (tenor)
Prima voce – Elisabetta Fusco (soprano)
Seconda voce – Pinuccia Perotti (soprano)
Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala di Milano/Tullio Serafin
rec. 1957, Teatro alla Scala, Milan
No libretto. Ambient Stereo XR Remastering
Pristine Audio PACO198 [2 CDs: 118]

In his recent exhaustive conspectus of Turandot, Lee Denham praised the depth of Callas’ portrayal of the eponymous (anti-?) heroine while remarking on some vocal failings; he also thought rather more highly than I of Schwarzkopf’s Liù, whereas I was inclined to be slightly more generous towards what he calls Fernandi’s “rather ineffectual” Calaf. Serafin’s conducting he found to be patchy, letting the tension slip at key points. The nuances of such responses and how they vary from one informed listener to another are always interesting; I myself reviewed the Naxos issue of this back in 2009, and Lee and I both agree that the original dull mono sound from EMI did none of the performers any favours – but reviewing Pristine’s new remastering of it into Ambient Stereo offered me the opportunity to audit my reactions and to see whether the newly enhanced sound modified them or mitigated my criticisms.

Despite the elapse of so many years since I last considered them, I find no cause to much revise my views of the actual performances, so I reproduce them here:

“To clear the decks, let me say unequivocally that as much as I admire Callas and applaud her extraordinary versatility, her voice never completely encompassed the demands of this most exacting of Puccini roles. She sang it twenty-one times in the first two years of her career in Italy because she could, and voices able to do so were – and remain – rare. However, she dropped it as soon as possible, revisiting it only for the purposes of this recording where she presumably thought she could get away with it. Yet the strain is still apparent. She does not sound to be in best voice at this time, despite – or perhaps because of? – having already successfully recorded both Il barbiere di Siviglia in London the previous February and then, in March, La Sonnambula, in Milan. Turandot requires a big, bold, brassy sing by a dramatic soprano who can maintain a steady, steely emission of tone and belt out fearless, gleaming top Cs and Bs at will. Callas cannot do this and everything from G upwards tends to flap or harden. Given that Turandot herself does not appear for almost an hour into the opera, she really has to make an impact of the right kind; Callas’ difficulties make one wish for Nilsson. Predictably, her best moments come in the last fifteen minutes of the opera when the ice-princess melts; she brings great tenderness to “Del primo pianto”. I do not want to belittle her achievement in bringing Turandot to life; she makes telling use of her biting lower register and brings her customary insight into interpretation of text. I am not the first to suggest that the turmoil of her own emotional life informed her characterisation of Turandot, who emerges as a complex, detailed, touching creation; but the performance as a whole does not display Callas’ best vocal gifts.

The recording is in clean, clear, slightly boxy mono, expertly restored, as ever, by Mark Obert-Thorn. The pity of it is that the aforementioned Barbiere was stereo and Decca had already made a stereo Turandot two years previously. So much of this music consists of grand crowd scenes and ensembles punctuated by brass and timpani, but the overall aural effect here is rather cramped. It’s a pleasure to encounter immediately as the Mandarin so firm-voiced a bass as “Giulio Mauri” – apparently – and unmistakably – a sobriquet for Nicola Zaccaria, doing a mitzvah for an inadequate colleague on the understanding that he would still get paid. Given his imposing and distinctive tone, in combination with the characteristic little lisp, I wonder that anyone thought he could get away with it undetected – not that it matters.

The casting of Schwarzkopf as Liù was controversial. Reactions to her voice are always very personal. I find her somewhat shrill, breathy and tremulous and miss the floating line of Caballé; for me, she is guilty of her besetting fault of mauling the text and injecting too many little gulps and swells for emotive effect. She produces a lovely pianissimo B-flat on “m’hai sorriso”; less so for the same note in “Ah pieta”. Ultimately, I find her too inclined to apply or manufacture intensity; I just want the part beautifully sung by Tebaldi or Caballé, who both have the right vocal personality and thus move me much more readily.

Eugenio Fernandi, while not a star name, is more than adequate. He sings a forthright, virile Calf but I miss the clarion heft of Corelli or the squillo of Björling, and his top C only just passes. He certainly holds his own in the “anything you can sing, I can sing louder” match with Callas during the riddles.

The rest of the cast is very fine. The Ministers are perfect, displaying expert comic timing and vocal acting; the chorus – albeit rather distanced from the microphone – is responsive and energised; the orchestral playing is skilfully paced by the veteran Serafin, who conducted performances of Turandot in the year of its première. Another pleasing link with 1926 is that Giuseppe Nessi, who sings the Emperor here, sang the first Pong. The sheer barbarism of this rather nasty opera and the exotic innovation of Puccini’s chinoiserie emerge triumphant.

So for me this Turandot does not take its place in the Pantheon of indispensable Callas recordings, though fans of La Divina will want it whatever I say.”

Over time, my reactions have, if anything, solidified; I still find the casting of Schwarzkopf as Liù inapt and even perverse; I still have time for Fernandi’s Calaf given that the challenge of finding anyone capable of singing it today has hardly been surmounted by Kaufmann’s hoarse and under-powered assumption of the role in the latest release conducted by Pappano and again, with time, we might now have increased respect for Callas’ achievement as the Ice-Princess. I certainly revel afresh in the trenchancy of her lower register and her care over the inflection of the words she sings. I am also struck by the sobering thought that we may listen here to a recording in decent sound featuring singers everyone of whom is no longer with us – and the members of the boys’ chorus, if they still are, will be approaching eighty years old.

Let me now turn to the newly refurbished sound. It really is a revelation; there is no way to exaggerate the difference Ambient Stereo makes in enhancing the ambience of an opera which relies so heavily upon sustaining an alternately oppressive and otherworldly atmosphere. I still find Serafin’s conducting compelling for its intensity despite a certain deliberateness; certainly, the depth and clarity of the improved sound lends efficacy to that approach.

Walter Legge’s stubborn resistance to stereo is here finally overcome by the breadth and amplitude of the acoustic Andrew Rose has engineered here. Hiss is minimal and I hear no distortion; nor is there any sense of artificiality about the application of Ambient Stereo – I am sure that we are now hearing as closely as possible what could be heard during the recording in La Scala that summer of 1957.

Ralph Moore

Note: baritone Mario Boriello as Ping is wrongly designated as a tenor in the cast list here and on the Naxos issue.

Availability: Pristine Classical