"THE COLLECTED RECORDINGS".(Review)

Dame Eva Turner [] "THE COLLECTED RECORDINGS" Arias and scenes by Verdi, Ponchielli, Puccini, Mascagni, Wagner; songs by D'Hardelot, Bantock, Grieg, Del Riego, Bull, Vaughan Williams. Various artists, orchestras, conductors. Notes, no texts or translations. Pearl GEMM 0094 (3)

Dame Eva Turner (1892-1990), the great, woefully under-recorded British dramatic soprano, is represented here with a three-CD set of her recordings for Columbia, as well as unpublished takes, sound checks, BBC archival material and the legendary live Turandot riddle scenes recorded at Covent Garden during the Coronation Season of 1937. In the past decade, some of the material on these discs has come -- and gone -- on CD, but nothing so complete as this collection has appeared previously. With an artist of this caliber, it is desirable to have all available material, and this release, made possible by the generosity and devotion of her friend, record collector Richard Bebb, and the skillful engineering of Roger Beardsley, who restored several discs that seemed beyond repair, is therefore most welcome -- with one drawback. As Turner was not widely recorded, what we run into here are multiple versions of the same aria; not in itself an unattractive option to collectors, but in this case we are talking about no fewer than six "In questa reggia"s, four "Vissi d'arte"s (two in English), three each of "Un bel di," "Ritorna vincitor," "O patria mia," and so forth. While this can be interesting, it is not for everyone.

The first tracks, from 1926, were recorded in Milan and consist of two ensembles and a number of arias and songs. The finales of Act II of Aida and Act III of La Gioconda are both a bit boxy-sounding; the most interesting thing about them is perhaps Turner's own story that she had to be placed behind the chorus, as she was too loud for the microphone. This is not terribly surprising; her voice is enormous and possesses an amazing cutting edge of steel, combined with richness. According to Bebb's notes, EMI producer Walter Legge claimed that Turner's high C used to go straight up to the gallery, right through the walls of Covent Garden and be clearly audible out on Bow Street. Beardsley explains, in a producer's note, that he made the choice not to "damp this down," and therefore it is up to the listener and his/her equalizer to handle what are some truly penetrating sounds.

The 1926 "Ritorna vincitor" has an immediacy and energy that pervade all the arias on the set. Diction is excellent, the soprano using the double r's expressively; she clearly loves singing in Italian, a language she spoke fluently. "O patria mia" includes the recitative, but in all versions it was shortened for time and goes directly to the high C of the second verse. Attention to dynamics is sensitively observed here, as it is in Gioconda's "Suicidio!," the phrase leaping the octave to a soft high A on "Volavan l'ore" executed with an ease and beauty that would have annoyed Zinka Milanov.

Another feature of the Turner ...