STOKOWSKI Puccini: Turandot (1961) - PACO071

Although she seems to have fought a losing battle over the issue, Rosa Raisa, Puccini’s personal choice to sing the title role at the premiere of Turandot, insisted that neither Puccini nor Toscanini, who conducted the premiere, pronounced the final “t” in the title. Given how the text is laid out, this makes sense to me. After all, one of the advantages of Italian when it comes to singing is all those words that end in vowels. Anyway, I just thought I’d bring this up before I dealt with the recording in question.

I was prepared to be disappointed by this 1961 Met broadcast, which was the next performance after the production’s acclaimed premiere. I had not heard the broadcast but I did attend several of the subsequent performances and found them sloppy and sluggish a good bit of the time. The Met’s original choice to conduct its new production of Turandot was Dimitri Mitropoulos, but his death in 1960 forced general manager Rudolf Bing to cast about for another conductor, preferably a famous one. Fortunately Leopold Stokowski was available and amenable, but several weeks before the first performance, the conductor broke his hip playing with his sons. Determined to meet his commitment, Stokowski made his way to the podium on crutches and, seated, conducted all the performances at the house; with the exception of those in Boston, tour audiences heard the opera conducted by Kurt Adler, the Met’s chorus master. Claiming that none of the orchestration of Turandot was in Puccini’s hand, Stokowski said that he had to hold down the volume as much as he could because the orchestration was too thick when accompanying the singers (but too thin when it wasn’t). He even wrote to Puccini’s publisher, Ricordi, asking for a duplicate of the original autograph score so he could “correct” all the “mistakes” in his. In any event, whatever he may have done, I heard orchestral colors and details that I did not remember hearing before, to the opera’s advantage.

Some choristers and soloists (including Nilsson) later claimed that they had difficulty following him (my impression at the performances I attended), but he and Corelli apparently got along fine and the tenor reputedly considered Stokowski, along with Herbert von Karajan and Antonino Votto, to be one of his three favorite conductors. Calaf was, more or less, Corelli’s signature role, one in which his dashing appearance and ringing high notes really counted for something. Although Stokowski praised Franco Alfano’s completion of the opera, he still makes the “authorized” (by whom?) cut in the duet because “we do not come to the final dénouement soon enough. With the cut we come straight to it, and after that there is wonderful music right to the end of the third act.” He also makes all three standard cuts in the Ping/Pang/Pong scene of act II. Some tempos might have gone a bit faster but there’s enough animation for me and some impressive, majestic moments. I wonder if he actually did make “adjustments.” In his case, there’s ample precedent for it. Some things, to be sure, would have been cleaned up if this had been a studio recording. In the love duet, for example, Corelli and Stokowski are simply not on the same page, and this could be the tenor’s congenital sloppiness—there’s ample precedent for that, too. The passage near the end of act II when Nilsson’s voice cuts through the full chorus and orchestra is impressive here, but in the house it was simply stunning, a truly great operatic thrill. Anna Moffo is an almost ideal Liù. Is it possible to have a voice that might be described as “silvery” and yet “meltingly beautiful”? Soft, floating pianissimos and smooth volume control were part of her vocal arsenal then, too. If only she could have sounded like this for another dozen years! Timur is a passive role and a good one for Bonaldo Giaiotti, the unimaginative possessor of a deep, mellow bass voice. The Ping, Pang, and Pong are ably handled by Frank Guarrera, Robert Nagy, and Charles Anthony; too bad Stokowski didn’t let them do their entire act II scene.

It was inevitable that Nilsson and Corelli would make a studio recording of the opera and they finally did, but even that one was beset by problems. The original choice to conduct the recording, John Barbirolli, refused to work with Corelli. His substitute, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, was hardly a Corelli favorite and reputedly had disputes with other singers, including Renata Scotto, a last-minute substitute for Mirella Freni, who was ill and unable to sing Liù. Nilsson, who had been appearing at Bayreuth, showed up just as the aggravated Corelli was ready to bug out of the recording sessions early, which he, in fact, did. As a result, the final duet was recorded with Turandot and everyone else in Milan and Calaf, on headphones, in London. Nilsson later complained that “he mastered the dynamics the way he wanted. And that is why you can’t hear my big notes there, because his are way too overpowering.” Ah, singers! Nevertheless, if I had to choose between the two recordings, my choice would be the EMI because I think Nilsson and (especially) Corelli sing a bit better for Molinari-Pradelli (whether they liked him or not) than they did for Stokowski, and Scotto, if she can’t melt like Moffo, is, nevertheless, an outstanding Liù. It’s a tighter performance than Stokowski’s and there is, after all, stereo, less gain-riding, and no audience or stage noise. On the other hand, if one wants a souvenir of a great night at the opera, this new Pristine release will do quite nicely; it’s also superior to many of the studio recordings but not to those of Molinari-Pradelli, Leinsdorf, Mehta, and Serafin.

James Miller
This article originally appeared in Issue 35:6 (July/Aug 2012) of Fanfare Magazine.