Search - Verdi, Tebaldi, Bergonzi :: Giovanna d'Arco

Thrilling singers! Good music. Libretto by baboons

L. E. Cantrell | Vancouver, British Columbia Canada | 04/25/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Source: RAI broadcast from 1951.



Sound: So-so at best, well below the standard usually achieved in the 1950s and certainly not as good as early electrical recordings from the 1930s. The effect is very much that of listening to a broadcast on a vacuum tube AM radio ... in a 1951 Ford.



Documentation: Wretched as only Od'O can make it. No libretto. Cast list. Short summary of the plot by act. Track list showing only the names of the pieces. No timings. Little on the cast and nothing on the circumstances of the recording.



Format: Disk 1, Act I and part of Act II, 65 minutes. Disk 2, conclusion of Act II and Act III, 44 minutes.



If you can accept the sound reproduction, this is a terrific performance. Don't worry about orchestral detail, just listen to the glorious voices. "Giovanna D'Arco" was a favorite of the young Renata Tebaldi, who performed it many times. This recording lets you know why. This is down-and-dirty, all-out, big-time Italian diva singing, and even for Tebaldi it is impressive. Tebaldi is teamed with a young Carlo Bergonzi, who had just moved up from baritone to tenor. There is still a baritonal darkness in his voice, but all the ring and power that anyone could want. No tenor now singing could begin to compete with him in this opera. (If Bergonzi had been born a German, what a Tristan or Tannhaeuser he might have become!) Rolando Panerai was just 26 at the time of this recording, but he brings sonority and authority to the role of Giovanna's lunatic progenitor.



This is an opera from what Verdi described as his years in the galley. It was produced between "I due Foscari" and "Alzira." Verdi was writing for money on tight schedules and setting librettos by writers it is overpraising to call hacks. If ever a libretto was written by a baboon, it was this one. I'm not sure whether the baboon-in-chief was Schiller, on whose play "Die Jungfrau von Orleans" it was based, or Solera, who cast it into Italian doggerel. There is certainly blame enough for both to share.



Even in its first run, the libretto of "Giovanna D'Arco" was a problem because it contradicted both the facts and the popular legend of the young woman who always called herself Jehanne la pucelle (Joan the Maiden). In the opera, Giovanna encounters the despairing Charles VII of France, bucks him up and sets off to drive back the English invaders. Having won great successes on the battlefield, Giovanna is rapturously acclaimed by the French. Charles, of course, has fallen for the warrior-girl. He offers his love and is rebuffed. He departs, convinced that only a saint could have turned him down. Up pops Giovanna's beloved father, a patriotic Frenchman who doesn't want France liberated by someone in pawn to the black arts, as he considers his daughter to be. He publicly advises his little girl to purge herself of sin by allowing herself to be burnt at the stake. The crowd turns on Giovanna, thinking that her old Pa must have some inside dope. In the last act of the opera, Giovanna is a prisoner and chained to a rock to await her fate. Her father passes by and hears her prayers. Moved by her piety, he decides that he has made a mistake, after all. He releases her so that she may ride off into yet another battle. She is successful but mortally wounded. She expires in the finale, to the grief of all, especially of the king and dear old Dad.



If you manage somehow to push the fact that it has to do with Joan of Arc out of your mind, "Giovanna D'Arco" is full of good tunes and rousing choruses. Verdi was still adhering to traditional forms and walking in the well-trodden path of Donizetti and Bellini, but he had already replaced their decorated melodies with a sheer strength unknown to the older masters. In his years in the galley, Verdi developed all the tools of greatness but he still awaited a librettist who would provide him with a character into whom he could breathe life, a Rigoletto, Violetta or Azucena.



Ignore the story--please! Forget the sound. Get this one for the thrilling voices of incomparable singers.



Five stars."

Best Giovanna so far...

Patzie | SF Peninsula, USA | 01/30/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Easy to see why the young Tebaldi "owned" this role; she brings an "oomph" to this role that I have not experienced in recorded performances since. Sound is actually OK, once the ear adjusts, and is well worth putting up with for such an impassioned performance. Libretto would have been helpful, but it's about par for this reissuer."

PERFECT VERDIAN SINGING!

Armindo | Greece | 08/07/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"
A GREAT new release by Opera d'oro! Giovanna D'Arco is not one of Verdi's most popular opera but listening to this set makes me wonder why. The music is so beautiful and the characters so heroic.



Opera fans and critics regard this particular recording as historical. Firstly, it shows the quality of the young Renata Tebaldi and sets the record straight. In the early 50s she could sing almost anything! Many think of her as a great verisimo diva but listening to Tebaldi here we realise she could have specialised in a different repertoire as well. Early Verdi never sounded so powerful and beautiful. Although Caballe's later Giovanna is perfectly sung, she doesn't have the fierce sound Joan D'Arc requires. Just listen to what Tebaldi does: in the "Sempre all'llba" she sounds like an angel but in "Pronta sono!" she changes and becomes a mighty warrior, exactly what the role requires. Tebaldi definitely benefited from her experience with this role on stage; a role she performed early in her carreer and became her own.



But the perfection does not end with Renata. Carlo Bergonzi, the best post-war (Verdi) tenor is heard here just after his conversion from baritone to tenor. His vocal beauty and perfection is equalled only by Gigli's. The first act duets with Tebaldi are simply ecstatic. This is what Verdi is all about! Panerai's Giacomo is a marvel to listen to though he cannot make me forget the two main principals. Finally, I certainly prefer Simonetto's slower conducting than Levine's later fast and loud one. Unfortunately the sound quality not ideal (I couldn't care less) but compared to the previous releases, the improvement is substantial. I can't remember the last time I heard such an all-around great Verdi recording. DON'T MISS THIS!!!



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