Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice, Act II. (Historical).(Sound Recording Review)

GLUCK: Orfeo ed Euridice, Act II [] With works by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Mignone, Fernandez. Merriman, Philips; Toscanini, NBC Symphony Orchestra. Notes, no texts. Urania URN 22 214 (Qualiton, dist.)

MOZART: Cosi Fan Tutte [] Schwarzkopf, Merriman, Sciutti; Alva, Panerai, Calabrese; Chorus and Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Cantelli. No notes. Living Stage LS 4035145 (Qualiton, dist.)

Toscanini's 1952 recording of Orfeo ed Euridice has been in circulation (lately on RCA Victor 60280) since its original release. This particular performance, however, dates from 1945, and it has never been officially issued. It features mezzo-soprano Nan Merriman, age twenty-five, at the outset of her career. Toscanini continued to mentor this gifted American artist in various opera ventures (Rigoletto, Otello, Falstaff). She went on to a respectable European career while being largely ignored by American opera houses. Her sensuous timbre, clear articulation and expressive qualities are on impressive display here in her pleas to the Furies, followed by a rapt "Che puro ciel." The NBC Orchestra provides a rich sonority for Toscanini's massive yet transparent treatment. If the pacing of the "Dance of the Furies" seems excessively energetic (he moderated the pace in 1952), the lyrical episodes are done gracefully and sensitively. The opening measures of the introduction are severely distorted, but later the overall sound resembles a 1940-ish normalcy that, by definition, is far from optimal.

Like the Gluck excerpt, the orchestral items are also "unofficial" elements in Toscanini's recorded legacy. Castelnuovo-Tedesco's concert overture A Fairy Tale is a charming miniature in the late-Romantic manner, and his overture to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew moves with a Wolf-Ferrari-like sparkle. The Batuque of Oscar Fernandez is a brief, noisy study in folk-tinged orchestral ostinato, while Francisco Mignone's Fantasia Brasileira provides a virtuoso showcase for pianist Bernardo ...