Les Vepres Sicilennes by Giuseppe Verdi
Drama in five acts (1855), to libretto of Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier.

Monforte    Sherrill Milnes
Bethune    Robert Goodloe
Vaudemont    Edmond Karlsrud
Tebaldo    Nico Castel
Roberto    Andrij Dobriansky
Elena    Montserrat Caballé
Ninetta    Cynthia Munzer
Procida    Justino Diaz
Arrigo    Nicolai Gedda
Danieli    Douglas Ahlstedt
Manfredo    Paul Franke

Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera House 
Conductor    James Levine

9 March 1974 New York Metropolitan

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Mood:  amorous

Adina - Mirella Freni
Nemorino - Nicolai Gedda
Belcore - Mario Sereni
Il Dottore Dulcamara - Renato Capecchi

Conductor: Francesco Molinari-Pradelli
Orchester and choir Opera of Rome

Recorded in 1966.

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Mood:  happy

01 Glinka Ivan Susanin Brothers in Arms
02 Tchaikovsky Onegin Kuda, Kuda
03 Tchaikovsky Pikova Dama Forgive me, you devine beeing
04 Tchaikovsky Pikova Dama Life is but a play
05 Rimsky-Korsakoff Sadko O you dark, shadowy wood
06 Mussorgsky Boris Godunov The cunning Jesuit
07 Mussorgsky The Mass of Sarotchin My heart, my poor heart
08 Rimsky-Korsakoff The Night in May The sun is sinking
09 Rimsky-Korsakoff The Night in May How calm, how marvellous the night
10 Rachmaninoff Aleko Over the flat grounds

Nicolai Gedda, tenor

Belgrad Philharmonic, conductor Gika Zdravkovitch

recorded 1969

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Mood:  caffeinated

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CHOR DER BAYERISCHEN STAATSOPER MÜNCHEN
SYMPHONIE-ORCHESTER GRAUNKE
WILLY MATTES, Munich 1973

When Radio Turin presented Le Prophète in 1970, it was the first time this Meyerbeer opera had been heard in Italy in 60 years. The precedent had been set in 1962 with La Scala's revival of Les Huguenots in 1962 and the Florence staging of Robert le diable in 1968, completing a Meyerbeer minirenaissance of sorts. (I reviewed that Florence revival for Fanfare's previous issue.) As for this Le Prophète (the only one of the three operas to be sung in the original French), it formerly appeared on LPs on the EJS label; this release is its first CD incarnation.

Hector Berlioz attended the opera's premiere in 1849 and gave this summation in one of his letters: "The score contains some very fine things side by side with feeble and detestable ones. But the splendor of the show will make everything pass muster." That seems like a fair appraisal, though "detestable" sounds rather strong for the opera's numerous admittedly less inspired pages. There is plenty of bombast and banality in Le Prophète 's music, and Scribe's libretto provides an abundance of improbable contrivances. But there is also evidence of Meyerbeer's novel and frequently ingenious touches of orchestration, and even more of his indisputable mastery of vocal writing. That latter element is far better served in the MYTO set than it was in CBS's complete recording of the opera, also featuring Marilyn Horne and the late Henry Lewis, which followed six years later.

The crucial difference between the two sets is Nicolai Gedda in the title role of Jean de Leyde, an historical personage whose story is considerably embroidered here by Scribe's fanciful imagination. Gedda displays an astonishing mastery of voix mixte effects (a mixture of head and chest resonances in the high register) that was beyond the reach of CBS's earnest, capable, but miscast James McCracken. The role of Jean has its heroic moments (the aria "O roi des cieux," for one), but it also calls for a whole array of high pianissimo shadings that emerge from Gedda's throat with remarkable grace and refinement. The crucial role of Fides (created by the legendary Pauline Viardot-Garcia) finds the 1970 Marilyn Horne in her element. She ranges high and low with equal bravura and emotional commitment, and her opulent tones are under firmer control than they are in the CBS set. Margherita Rinaldi, in the taxing role of Berthe, is absent from the opera's central episodes, but brings a virtuoso flair to her opening Cavatina and to her dramatic reappearance in act IV. The three Anabaptist conspirators — Meyerbeerian villains of despicable character, yet not without a measure of opéra comique irony — are quite good, particularly basso Robert El Hage.

Henry Lewis conducts with authority and precision, bringing vitality to the opera's rather effective ballet sequence (mandatory in the "grand operas" of the period). The chorus, too, contributes significantly. Within its somewhat restricted dynamic range, the recorded sound is quite enjoyable.

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Mood:  lyrical

01. The peddler
02. If I only could express it in sounds
03. Grey foggy morning
04. Farewell you new village
05. Snow has covered you, Russia
06. Caucasian melody - Pray, friend
07. The snow tempest down the street
08. Weeping willow
09. Troika
10. Monotonously rings the little bell
11. Evening bells

Nicolai Gedda (tenor)

Choir of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral
Dir. Nicholas P. Afonsky
Balalaika Orchestra
Dir. Lonya Kolbouss
October 1963. New York

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Mood:  lyrical

  
Gedda, Nicolai  (tenor) -    Faust  
Ghiaurov, Nicolai  (bass) -    Méphistopheles  
Massard, René  (barítoneo) -   Valentin  
Harper, Heather  (soprano) -   Marguerite  
de Retes, Africa  (soprano) -   Siébel  
Algorta, Jorge  (bass) -    Wagner  
Bartoletti, Luisa  (mezzo) -    Marthe

Orchester of  Teatro Colón, conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni, May 1971, recording of a live performance.

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Nicolai Gedda (tenor) – The Duke of Mantua

Cornell MacNeil (baritone) – Rigoletto

Reri Grist (soprano) – Gilda

Agostino Ferrin (bass) – Sparafucile

Anna di Stasio (mezzo) – Maddalena

 Limbania Leoni (mezzo) – Giovanna

 Ruggero Raimondi (bass) – Count Monterone

 Benito di Bella (baritone) – Marullo

Franco Ricciardi (tenor) – Borsa

Alfredo Giacomotti (bass) – Count Ceprano

Mirella Fiorentini (mezzo) – Countess Ceprano

Carlo Castrucci (baritone) – An Usher

Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma/Francesco Molinari-Pradelli
rec. Opera House, Rome, July 1967

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Lady Harriet Durham - Anneliese Rothenberger

Nancy - Brigitte Fassbaenfer

Lyonel - Nicolai Gedda

Plimkett - Hermann Prey

The judge - Hans Georg Knoblich

1st maid - Hanne-Ruth Mayer

2nd maid - Elisabeth Schmaus

3rd maid - Hildegard Steinmeier

1st servant - Artur Horn

2nd servant - Hans Mursch

3rd servant - Gerhard Fuchs

Chorus master - Wolfgang Baumagt. Bayerisches Staadsorchester conducted by Robert Hager, 1969