In Capriccio the proposition is raised that an opera be written about these very people, the cast in fact, who are sitting in a group discussing opera’s nature, attractions and repellants, and that it be presented as a birthday present to the Countess Madeleine, who is at the centre of the group and thus herself a character: very suitable, therefore, that this famous recording should be reissued now as a contribution to the birthday celebrations of its own Madeleine, who will be 85 in December. The other sets in this issue, released simultaneously, are also apt: one of them representing her in a role which remained central to her operatic career, the other in a genre for which she had a special flair but for which her working schedule allowed little time.
Ungratefully, I’m going to wish, first, that the Cosi fan tutte could have been the earlier version under Karajan (now also at mid-price from EMI), secondly that the Widow might have been a double. The two discs of this 1962 recording last in all not more than 80 minutes, and there was an earlier Widow from 1953 (11/88), also with Schwarzkopf and Gedda but conducted by Ackermann and having Erich Kunz as Danilo and Emmy Loose as Valencienne. At some stage it must have occurred to somebody as a possibility that the two recordings together might make a viable set, with just a little squeezing-up, accommodated on two CDs. That would have been a double delight, enriched by the opportunity for comparisons. With Cosi the importunate thought arises out of sheer personal preference – but it is one that the years have strengthened.
I do find, not in the singers but in Bohm’s direction, a lack of fun. His speeds are so moderate, so sensible (nothing gets out of hand). We’re talking now of a fine art, a performance which orchestrally as well as vocally has very evident distinction among its many would-be rivals; but what I get from the conducting is like a clear, intelligent reading of Jane Austen without a sense of humour.
These niggly considerations aside, delectation abounds, as in both the opera and the operetta a company of rare talent gives of its inspired best. In Lehar, the smiling voice of Gedda casts its glow over the whole party. In Mozart, his hoped-for presence proved unavailable, and by happy chance and good judgement the young Alfredo Kraus was brought in. Not a Mozart singer by training, he mastered the part and sings with the skill and style of an expert. The ripe Italianate warmth of Giuseppe Taddei raises the spirits further, and Walter Berry (after hamming his bringer-of-bad-news act so tastily that the girls should have suspected something) is a suave Alfonso. Hanny Steffek does all that is expected of her as Despina – which is a compliment if you are more susceptible than is the present writer to the charms of the soubrette. As for the ladies, they are the best wonders of art and nature combined, Ludwig a Dorabella of formidable spirit in her ‘Smanie implacibili’ vein, and Schwarzkopf a Fiordiligi whose depth of humanity and mastery of technique meet in a ‘Per pieta’ of rare beauty.
But the gift of greatest price is the Capriccio, and I imagine it will win the most gratitude. Schwarzkopf herself has said of this recording that she thinks it the best of her opera sets, ‘in all respects: conductor, orchestra, tempo, sound, balance, diction, even expression’. And she added, concerning the subject of the opera: ‘it was the argument of my life’ (Elisabeth Schwarzkopf: A Career on Records; Duckworth: 1995). Her singing is radiant in tone, animated in every response, always with awareness of the woman’s thirst for truth and goodness, which is the human reality beneath the urbanity and good manners. And of course she was right to draw attention to the recording as a product of teamwork. In this and the others the ensemble reaches the same high standard as the solo work; record-production has a distinction matching that of the performance. At the head of the team on each occasion was Walter Legge, and on that account too the birthday tributes will be valued. For those who already have the recordings, I would not say that the new edition warrants a re-ordering, but for the first-time buyer these are clearly the ones, with vivid sound, attractively illustrated booklets with new essays by Richard Osborne, and bright red dog-and-trumpet labels recalling the company’s great tradition and assimilating these classic recordings from the ’50s and ’60s within it.'