Richard Tucker – A Treasury of French Opera Arias

★★★

   Any success in artistic culture depends on so many elements, dedication and specialization are elements of a natural tendency. Exceptions to this rule are the more interesting they are rare and unusual. Nonetheless there were many examples of such combining many talents and different kinds of activity. One of famous artists who didn’t entirely devote to a one direction career was Richard Tucker, great opera tenor and famous cantor from New York recording religious and secular music. He was one of greatest tenor during three postwar decades. Singing in Metropolitan Opera during the last period of opulence era, when operatic world was lead by the bunch of best tenors ever recorded, he became one of brightest stars of opera stage, popular thanks to recording studio and live albums, giving radio performances and recitals.
   Richard Tucker (originally Rivn Ticker) was born August 28th, 1913 in Brooklyn. In period of school years he was successful in athletics as well as in singing. Later he was working as salesman and casually as a wedding singer, but also started to work in religious community. He raised a family but still was not sure what path to follow, he was hired as part time cantor in Passaic, New Jersey, and selling silk, until he was promoted to full time cantor in Temple Adath Israel in Bronx and Brooklyn Jewish Center. This made him to decide about being a singer. His brother-in-law was Jan Peerce, famous operatic tenor and favorite singer of Toscanini with NBC Symphony Orchestra recordings. Older and well recognized Peerce was openly skeptical about opera ambitions of Richard Tucker. Later Tucker’s successes led to a lasting rift in the family. 

Richard Tucker – A Treasury of French Opera Arias (1966)

   January 25th, 1945 Richard Tucker had debuted as operatic singer in Metropolitan Opera as Enzo in Ponchielli’s La Gioconda with such brilliant success, he stayed on stage for next three decades. Four years after he was already one of most recognized opera singers. In 1949 he performed in complete Columbia recording of Madama Butterfly under Max Rudolf and singing the part of Radames in complete NBC radio performance of Aida with Arturo Toscanini. In 1956 he recorded Aida again, this time for EMI in Teatro Alla Scala with Maria Callas, Fedora Barbieri and Tito Gobbi under Tullio Serafin. He recorded dozens of records, as well individual as complete opera productions. He recorded big part of basic opera repertoire, big choice of synagogue cantorial music and lots of popular and folk songs. Most popular arias from his repertoire were presented in various collections, but most popular part of his discography was a series of thematic albums with popular songs and arias.
   In 1966 Richard Tucker with The Vienna State Opera Orchestra and conductor Pierre Dervaux recorded for Columbia album A Treasury of French Opera Arias (MS 6231).  The choice is clear – most emotional arias from romantic French opera show the variety of the genre. First side opens George Bizet’s Flower Song famous air from opera Carmen. Then he sings airs from Jules Massenet’s Werther, Étienne Méhul’s Joseph, Giacomo Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine and famous father’s air Rachel! Quand du Seigneur from La Juive, opera by Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy. Second side opens with Romance “Je crois entendre” from Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers) but next four arias are highlights from Massenet’s Manon, Werther, Hérodiade and Le Cid. Richard Tucker was here in his best. His clear and powerful voice, interpretative experience and comprehensive skills with strong emotional factor made this program a perfect recital. Four stars plus a half for the idea of celebrating Paris opera in Vienna.

Fritz Reiner, Risë Stevens and Jan Peerce Carmen by Bizet

   Fritz Reiner is one of these great conductors who became legendary performers before the era of long playing phonographic recordings. He was born in Budapest in 1988, a year before Emile Berliner started marketing of disc records, which can be considered as the date of phonographic record has born. He was studied in his native city in Ferenc Liszt Academy, where during last years he was student of Béla Bartók. He was working with Richard Strauss in Dresden Semper Opera and with Opera House in Budapest. In 1922 he immigrated to United States where he took post of principal conductor of Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
   In 1928 he became naturalized citizen what gave him chance to work as a teacher in Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of his students was Leonard Bernstein. In 1938 he became conductor of Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra, recording with this orchestra some early records. His career as recording artist started to grow after 1948 when he became conductor in Metropolitan Opera. In this period he recorded two renditions of Carmen, in 1951 with RCA Victor Orchestra for RCA Victor Red Seal label and in 1952 with Metropolitan Opera for Columbia Company. Both castings share the voice of Risë Stevens singing the role of Carmen. Although Columbia recording has in collective memory the position of legendary masterpiece, one year earlier RCA edition is still worthy of discovery.

Georges Bizet - Carmen - Fritz Reiner (1951, ed. 1974)

   This monophonic recording has unbelievably good space. It was republished in 1974 in original mono version and this pressing shows full master range of 1951 performance and recording mastery. Orchestra sound is clear, perfect in articulation, tempos are the best one can dream on. No effort at the uniqueness or pretending towards the originality – this performance is as clear in intentions as attractive in sound. Silence between the notes just can be heard what makes the energy of the orchestra just tangible. RCA Orchestra and The Robert Show Chorale merge into a spectacular narrative. Perfect articulation gives crowd scenes tremendous power. The sound of choral scenes is huge and in top of dynamic range sounds distorted but this may be my copy failure. Balanced solo voices in ensembles and perfectly directed solo arias drawing reliable pictures of different characters.
   Every Carmen performance demands at least four soloists to be stars. And in this recording all four are brightly shining. Risë Stevens as Carmen is great. Nothing new – she sung Carmen in years 1945-1961 with many conductors and singers. And her Carmen was one of most acclaimed in the history of Bizet’s masterpiece renditions. Her mezzo-soprano is deep and powerful, firmly positioned, warm and rich in sound and free of mannerisms what gives listener esthetic pleasure and full emotional satisfaction. This Carmen is warm blooded woman and strong believer. It’s one of best Carmen ever and really hard to stop listening.

   In RCA recording partners of Risë Stevens are Jan Peerce as Don José and Robert Merrill in the role of toreador Escamillo. Both are daring and brave. Jan Peerce sings with great culture, his tenor sounds little bit darker than average and dramatic skills give the character more depth than usual. Of course Don José character is a way more complicated than Escamillo. Toreador is in fact second plan role although his famous narration is one of iconic triumphal opera scenes. Robert Merrill in 50’s and early 60’s he was number one for baritone dramatic roles what can be perfectly clear considering this recording. Singing and playing the role of Micaela is important in the production. Licia Albanese, owes great fame her lyric soprano especially roles in Puccini operas as Cio-Cio San, Mimì, Liù and Manon Lescaut. Nice, smooth voice sounds as much different from Risë Stevens as Micaela differs of Carmen. Fritz Reiner’s 1951 rendition of Carmen despite the past 60 years is still engaging and worth to remember.

Georg Solti & Tatiana Troyanos in Bizet’s Carmen

Opera Carmen, last and undeniably the best work composed by Georges Bizet, occupies special place among romantic works and in whole opera repertoire. This work has such great number of advantages, it is hard to control by listeners or by performing artists. Thus Carmen in almost every rendition sounds fresh, sometimes surprising and always exerts a great influence on the emotions of the audience. It is also one of very few operas so difficult to shorten or reduce to assortment of arias and scenes. In fact whole Bizet’s opera can be seen as cycle of favorite scenes, and every fragment is full of musical ideas and coruscating with dramatic imaginary. Every scene, duo, aria or ensemble is like number one in opera hits ranking. The same quality of perfectly composed unity of great moments characterizes the whole work.
There a many great performances and recordings of Carmen and sometimes it is really hard to point the better one. And it is either not the question of quality, or the esthetical paradigm. People are constantly changing and so their systems of value. One moment we appreciate a heroine of subtle and chimerical, while the other we look for strong and firmly consequent woman. One time we need more actress performance, while in the next performance we are astonishing by the beautiful voice. This is why we are unable to point one and the best performance, even when our sympathies speak for themselves. One of best and often pointed by emotions is performance under the baton of Sir Georg Solti recorded July 1975 in London, in Henry Wood Hall for Decca. This performance has been published as complete set of records in 1976 (London Records OSA 13115) and in 1977 as one LP choice of Great Scenes & Arias (Decca SET 621).

Tatiana Troyanos as Carmen (1977)

Carmen is always featured role, so without any doubts name of singer playing Carmen should be the first in the program, and it is not surprising, the star of this rendition is Tatiana Troyanos. There are many listeners acknowledging this recording as legendary one and best from any point of view. There is also a bunch of great performances of other frontline characters. Don José is played by Placido Domingo who was gaining the fame of great dramatic tenor at the time. Micaela was sung by Kiri Te Kanawa who was one of most appreciated lyric sopranos for more than next two decades. José van Dam sings famous role of Escamillo and his triumphant entrance is as much musical as much suggestive. Highest level of professional efficiency under direction of Sir Georg Solti has been achieved in powerful performance by London Philharmonic Orchestra and great work of John Alldis Choir. Although this is not a rule, you may find that for the artist of this format is more natural to leave wider interpretation margin for the soloists.
Tatiana Troyanos appeared as Carmen and this was one of most perfectly sung and persuasively played role of this femme fatale ever. Her deep chest voice gave Carmen the kind of sound that can convince how much sensual and experienced woman she is. She knows what she needs, and she knows how to achieve it. In fragments where Carmen is haunted by emotions, she sounds brightly, singing in head voice register with perfectly light vibrato. In such moments she sounds like a girl. Unforgettable duets Troyanos-Domingo are dynamically changing along with developing storyline. They are cautious at the beginning, and gradually their relations are more and more passionately, ardent and dramatically dangerous in their difference. All emotions clearly displayed and shaped with profoundly musical sense. Absolutely five-star performance.

Carlos Saura's Carmen Soundtrack

In 1845 French writer Prosper Mérimée published novella Carmen telling the story of love, envy and crimes of passion. Thirty years later this story became the plot of widely recognized opera by Georges Bizet. Great success of the work fixed its position in culture of next century. Hundreds opera settings, dozens of ballet, dramatic and movie versions and thousands citations gave this work prominent position. The story is about Carmen, cigar factory worker and liberated woman, enchanting lover and independent person, and the story is in fact the perfect carrier of social criticism. Probably the best movie version of Carmen is film made in 1983 by Carlos Saura, Spanish director famous for his involvement in movies on dance and music subjects. It is significant, Saura’s debut was short film Flamenco made in 1955 when he was only 23 years old. 

After successful career of avant-garde filmmaker in sixties and seventies, Saura turn to his first fascination making movies with dance and about dance. His great achievement in eighties were movies started by Bodas de sangre (Blood Wedding) a story joining poetry, dance and music in quasi-documentary narration about dance company working on flamenco adaptation of Federico García Lorca’s play. It was first unit of flamenco trilogy comprised Bodas de sangre (1981), Carmen (1983) and El amor brujo (1986). These three pictures focused on dance and choreography as essential elements of movie narration and became new standard in cinematic career of the dance. Next two decades Saura was developing his idea, creating his own style of musical film in Flamenco (1995), Tango (1998), Salomé (2002), Iberia (2005) Fados (2007) and many more. Carmen is the cornerstone of his creative output.

Soundtrack Carmen (1983)

The international success of Blood Wedding was best confirmation for the line of Saura’s artistic exploration. For his next movie he took story of similar dramatic potential and strong musical connection to the most famous opera related to flamenco music. Based on French novel and French opera spectacle shows profound sense of love and death. But Carmen was not just the second movie in this sequence; this film was quite different in its concept. Blood Wedding was based on contrasts between the story portrayed in spectacle and the life of working dance company. Carmen shows parallel emotions affecting the fate and interweaving events of play and playing company. The construction of the story within a story was known from the history of great literature and theatre. Of course it was also present in opera, where some ideas of short plays or music playing from inside the scene are traditional way of building the dramatic reliability. Carlos Saura adapted these foundations giving also some original improvements.
Production of flamenco dance and music version of Carmen was the first Saura’s project with choreographer Maria Pagès and musician Paco de Lucía. Artists became long time contributors in many Saura’s films. Main musical idea of this story is to connect dancers and drama characters to flamenco. Opposite to alive and vivid flamenco versions is original operatic rendition of Bizet’s score. Saura chose twenty years older, the 1963 recording from Grand Theatre de Geneve conducted by Thomas Schippers. This historic performance was bright of opera stars Regina Resnik as Carmen and Mario del Monaco as Don José. Next two presented in fragments choosen to Saura’s movie soundtrack were Tom Krause as Escamillo and Robert Geay as Zuniga. In this bright and famous recording participated L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR) and Le Chor du Grand Theatre de Geneve. And what is due the flamenco musicians and movie makers, soundtrack is well harmonized and sounds coherently. Both of the planes intermingle around one double-story line. Maybe this record is mainly for flamenco and opera enthusiasts, but the movie is one must be known.