Bellini: I Puritani. (Historical).

BELLINI: I Puritani

[] Sills; Gedda, L. Quilico, Plishka; Ambrosian Opera Chorus, London Philharmonic, Rudel. 1973. Text and translation. DG 289 471 207-2(3)

In the 1970s, when this recording was originally released, it represented a salvo in the battle of the bel canto divas. Beverly Sills and Julius Rudel brought their I Puritani to City Opera in 1974, the year after this set was recorded. That same year, Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge recorded I Puritani (their second) with an all-star cast featuring Luciano Pavarotti (Decca, out of print), and in 1976, the Met mounted a glam new Sutherland/Pavarotti production. Puritani was territory to be fought over.

In those days, it seemed you could like one or the other soprano but not both. Sutherland's voice was incomparably warmer and more generous than Sills's, but she was less musically incisive, and in legato passages, she often seemed to slip into a kind of dazed autopilot. Sills brought awareness and intensity to every line, but hers was a less beguiling instrument. A generation later, after the dust has settled, their virtues seem so perfectly complementary that listening to both recordings constitutes a refresher class in bel canto style.

The strengths and limitations of Sills's Elvira are demonstrated in a single phrase in Act I, Scene 2. Elvira's protector, Giorgio, has just revealed that she is free to marry her lover, Arturo; as she hears the trumpets announcing Arturo's approach, she cries ecstatically "Ah, padre mio!" It's a big moment, and Sills's intentions match its grandeur. Rudel holds back the tempo to let the phrase expand. Sills swells on that opening "Ah!" -- but unfortunately it doesn't register as a true crescendo. The voice lacks the extra degree of "give" that would let Sills phrase it as she obviously intends to; the tone, instead of getting louder and richer, just begins to rattle. Still, her intelligence carries the day: you understand the shape of the phrase, even if you haven't quite heard it.

So it goes throughout. There's moment after moment of musical insight. In contrast to Sutherland, with her notoriously murky diction, Sills forms the Italian right on the tongue: the words seem to jump out at you. The wonderful cavatina of Elvira's Act II mad scene "Qui la voce" is firmly and delicately phrased. But the shallow tone starts to grate, and one soon wishes she had more coloristic resources at her disposal. Moreover, she is ...