Why are successful recordings of Rossini's comic masterpieces so difficult to come by on record? They exist. But sightings are rare and the best are pretty long in the tooth, an endangered species almost. And why has this happened at a time when, in many other respects, Rossini's star has been rising? In the last 25 years, horizons have widened, corrupt texts have been freshly edited and a new generation of accomplished young singers has appeared in numbers that almost constitute a glut.
Yet there has also been a decline in the playing of the comic operas. Too much of the conducting nowadays is over-quick, the rhythms 'flat', the phrasing featureless. This in turn is a hindrance to singers whose Achilles' heel is an inability to project and colour words with the captivating immediacy of their predecessors. And, compounding the problem, there is the danger of misusing stereo sound. Full-blown stereo sound is fine for a larger-than-life, deliberately 'theatrical' production such as Decca's almost impossibly rollicking 1963 Florence show conducted by de Fabritiis; but all too often over-quick conducting and mousy diction are made worse by recordings that lack the tautness, the immediacy, the sharpness of focus that Rossini's music needs every bit as much as, say, Stravinsky's in his neo-classical phase.
As it happens, the new Teldec recording was made in the same studios (Abbey Road No. 1) as the 1953 EMI Gui/Glyndebourne. By modern standards, the Teldec is unexceptionable but, away from the big solo numbers, neither voices nor orchestra are as cleanly focused as they are on the older rival which despite being in mono, manages to combine thrilling immediacy with an almost stereophonic sense of stage perspective.
The Don Magnifico on that old Glyndebourne set is Ian Wallace, a fine actor and old-school diseur whom you expect to get the words across with relish. (''Un segreta d'importanza'', the duet in which Magnifico discovers that Dandini has duped him, is a locus classicus in this respect.) Some might argue that Wallace doesn't sing enough. But you cannot say that of the Dandini, Sesto Bruscantini (save in floridly 'serious' music where Teldec's Gino Quilico is also technically suspect); and, in any case, both singers are greatly helped by Gui's flawlessly judicious pacing of the score. Take, for example, the Dandini/Ramiro duet that launches the Act 1 finale, ''Zitti, zitti, piano, piano''. On the Glyndebourne set this is paced, coloured and projected to perfection by Gui, Oncina andi Bruscantini. It is not particularly quick, yet it spins along irresistibly. Abbado, with Capecchi and Alva, also paces the music well—not too quick. There is not quite the sly lift to the rhythm we have from Gui, but Abbado, using Alberto Zedda's cleaned-up text, makes more of the chilly sul ponticello string writing. Gabriele Ferro on Sony is also sensitive to the distinction between speed and a true vivace; but back in 1980 period performers were still finding their feet and this—in many ways remarkable performance does occasionally sound rather timid orchestrally. Chailly, on Decca, is far too quick in ''Zitti, zitti'', with the Bologna orchestra sounding buzzy rather than super-cool, and Carlo Rizzi almost falls into the same trap. The music skims along quickly and slightly colourlessly. The playing is neat, the words audible, the recording of both slightly removed.
In the previous number, Magnifico's investiture as superintendent of the wine glasses, there is also some want of colour and character in the playing. The performance does not exactly carouse as some do. Gui's, with Ian Wallace, is especially ripe, the long slow accelerando (unmarked by Rossini) giving the whole thing a specially bibulous feel.
Of course, La Cenerentola is not in all respects a comic opera. It has its morbid moments, and its flashes of purely vocal virtuosity, making it even more difficult to bring off satisfactorily. Rizzi points up the morbidity admirably in a performance of the overture which turns what was originally a curtain-raiser for La gazzetta into something altogether more broodingly atmospheric. Elsewhere though, his touch is unsure. The scene in which, with Cenerentola standing beside him, Magnifico announces that the girl is dead, is rather sentimentalized, the music tending to die on its feet. By contrast, the subsequent stretta is absurdly rushed.
Nor is Jennifer Larmore, a most sympathetic Cenerentola, much helped by the tendency of the production to oscillate rather too sharply between farce and comedie larmoyante. But, then, Cenerentola is rarely the one who lets the side down. (Gui's Marina de Gabarain is an unfortunate exception to this rule.)
Nicely sung and neatly played as the new Teldec set is it does not, in the end, really solve the Cenerentola problem. The Gui is unmissable, despite some cuts and de Gabarain's finale. But the 1971 Abbado remains the best all-round performance and recording on CD. Abbado's La Scala, Milan video and LaserDisc version, with Frederica von Stade as Cenerentola, directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, is better still if you want the whole show. The staging is as relentlessly inventive as Walt Disney's Aladdin, but I doubt whether you will ever see it better done.'