In answer to all those nay-sayers concerning Alagna’s talents, the tenor here shows, in the most demanding programme imaginable, that there is little if anything wrong with his technique and a great deal right with his sense of Verdian style. Indeed, as if in confirmation as to what he told me in an interview last summer, he takes the score as his bible. That is evident, for instance, in his treatment of what is on the face of it the most unlikely role for him, Otello. In the great Act 3 Monologue, besides thinking himself into the Moor’s deep well of despond at this juncture of the tragedy, evinced in a slightly juddering tone, he sings the opening passage as written, staying on the A flat and E flat, not going for unwanted melodrama. Then the cantilena is sung with the appropriate touch of pained nobility. In the Death scene he finds the right pent-up voice for “Come sei pallida” and the repeated “Desdemona”, then sings “Or morendo” with a pp on the high G, as Verdi enjoins. Both passages show Alagna colouring his tone intelligently.
So much else in the recital is just as thoughtfully interpreted. He solves the problem of the high B flat at the end of “Celeste Aida” by starting it mezzo-forte and shading it away affectingly in a well-executed diminuendo, having sung the whole aria in a suitably poetic manner. “Quando le sere al placido” has its two verses nicely differentiated. Alagna is the brigand to the life in Ernani’s introductory aria. Riccardo’s (or if you like Gustaf’s) Act 3 aria is charged with emotion, the tone properly plaintive and darkened for the middle section.
Then there’s perhaps the most taxing aria for tenor in all Verdi: Alvaro’s “O, tu che in seno” from Forza. Following the most eloquent playing by the Berlin Philharmonic’s clarinet in the long introduction, Alagna catches the Inca’s sense of longing in the recitative and then rises to the challenge of the aria’s relentless tessitura with fine-grained, almost heroic tone. Nor does he shirk the high Cs in “Di quella pira”, though such macho stuff isn’t natural territory for his voice (incidentally, Gheorghiu makes a fleeting appearance as Leonora between its verses). Macduff’s nostalgic piece is sung far more confidently than when the opera was broadcast from La Scala at the end of last year.
The rarity here is the item from Jerusalem, sung in Alagna’s other tongue. Surely Gilbert Duprez, the first Gaston, cannot have sung this recitative and aria more elegantly or been better accompanied than is Alagna by the Berlin Philharmonic, whose contribution, under Abbado’s distinguished direction, is as accomplished as you might expect, but the arias from Ballo, Macbeth and Trovatore would have benefited from a slightly faster tempo or at least a more Verdian lift to the basic rhythm: all sound a shade tame and untheatrical.
The recording allows us to hear the full bloom of Alagna’s voice, but occasionally the sound of the voice appears to stray or float around the sound spectrum, a disconcerting effect, but that’s not enough of a distraction to prevent a strong recommendation to all who fancy the tenor and/or his programme.'