Marilyn Horne "Just for the Record: The Golden Voice".(Sound Recording Review)

Arias, duets and songs by Bellini, Copland, Handel, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Verdi and others. Various orchestras and conductors. Decca B0001512-02 (2)

Marilyn Horne's career took her, in nearly five decades, from the back lot at 20th Century Fox--where she dubbed the voice of Dorothy Dandridge in Otto Preminger's 1954 film of Carmen Jones--to the Met and La Scala, and from Handel to Irving Berlin. It earned her the grateful admiration of colleagues as diverse as Igor Stravinsky and Mr. and Mrs. Richard Bonynge, and the adoration of opera audiences worldwide. Anyone who wants proof of Horne's standalone status in the history of opera had best look to the evidence at hand: a compendium of recordings from her glorious prime, issued by Decca in celebration of the mezzo's seventieth birthday. Throughout most of this album's more than two hours, the singing is a marvel. Few singers on record have exhibited such a rock-solid technique, so integrated a scale, such security from top to bottom. Then there's the sound of the voice itself--an instantly recognizable amalgam of bronze and gold. Moreover, Horne is a vividly communicative singer. Some emotions and moods may not come naturally to her--vulnerability, for one; languor, for another. But nobody has ever communicated the sheer joy of singing quite so tangibly.

The first of the two discs presents Horne in opera, with samples of her Carmen, Dalila and Mignon. She's especially impressive in the incisively articulated recitative that introduces Orfeo's "Addio, addio, o mid sospiri," although there's such a surfeit of bravura singing on this CD that the more introspective "Che faro senza Euridice" would have been more welcome. The disc centers, aptly, on Rossini--the composer for whom Horne's abundant gifts might have been created--with big arias from Semiramide, L'Italiana in Algeri and La Donna del Lago. Despite the fireworks in these selections, though, the most astonishing display of virtuosity comes in the cabaletta to "O toi, qui m'abandonne," from Le Prophete, its arpeggiated coloratura seeming to set the boundaries of human vocal capability.

The second disc features duets with some famous colleagues, including the entire "Mira, o Norma" scene, a treasurable souvenir of Horne's famous partnership with Joan Sutherland. In the cadenza leading ...