Berlioz: Benvenuto Cellini. (Historical).(Sound Recording Review)

[] Zylis-Gara, Steiner; Bonisolli, Brendel, Thau, Sinimberghi Loomis Amis El Hage, Frascati; RAI Orchestra and Chorus, Rome, Ozawa. No libretto. Opera d'Oro OPD-1373 (Allegro, dist.)

Strike one against this 1973 Italian Radio recording is the choice of the "wrong" Cellini. Seiji Ozawa is conducting the now largely discredited "Weimar edition," a radically abbreviated 1850s reconfiguration of a work that had its disastrous premiere in Paris in 1838. Twentieth-century scholars have resuscitated something close to the Paris version, which served for the major Covent Garden revival of 1966, the 1972 Philips set (with definitive work by Colin Davis and Nicolai Gedda) and most revivals since.

A second deficiency is the lamentable recorded sound of this live performance: distant, blurred and shallow. Voices emerge recognizably, but since this is Berlioz rather than Bellini, the loss of instrumental definition weighs heavy. One of the composer's imaginative orchestral touches--the Act II entrance solo by "Cardinal Salviati" (Pope Clement VII in the original), to an ominous, dark brass-and-string accompaniment in the bass--falls flat here, muted to a dim gray.

Then there's verbal color--a series of fractured French vowels and miscellaneous alien grunts and growls by most of the principals and the otherwise excellent RAI chorus. It made this Berlioz buff wish they'd simply used an Italian translation.

And yet.... The Weimar edition has its documentary value; it is also economical (requiring only two CDs), and some listeners may be glad to have an expanded "highlights" set that dispenses with spoken dialogue. Fanatic Berliozians, at the prospect of a second Benvenuto Cellini on disc (in any edition), will echo the aforementioned line sung by the Pope/Cardinal: "For every sinner, full indulgence."

This performance mainly commits sins of omission. Ozawa's reading lacks the style and character of Colin Davis's, the seemingly spontaneous ebb and flow, as well as its subtlety. A committed Berlioz conductor nevertheless, Ozawa grasps the Romantic urgency of many episodes and secures ...