Karajan on Decca: Puccini++

As was observed this past Wednesday, coverage of The Complete Decca Recordings anthology of performances by conductor Herbert von Karajan will now conclude with an account of the three most-frequently performed operas of Giacomo Puccini, La bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly. Each of these three albums features a “powerhouse” coupling of soprano and tenor. In La bohème and Butterfly, that coupling consists of Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti, respectively. The role of Floria Tosca, on the other hand, is sung by Leontyne Price with Giuseppe Di Stefano as her Mario Cavaradossi. Price also sings on what amounts to a “bonus album” in the collection, Christmas with Leontyne Price.

I should probably “come clean” by admitting that I was never a big Pavarotti fan, primarily because, when he was in his prime, I had little interest in his repertoire. That said, I have to admit that, for the most part, his excesses are kept in check in his two Puccini appearances. I suspect that Karajan played the strongest role in these results. While he is never shy when it comes to “pulling out all the stops” for the most intense episodes, he takes a disciplined approach to keeping his dynamics in check over the course of the entire opera.

Original 1904 poster showing the tragic conclusion of Madama Butterfly (by Adolfo Hohenstein, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Karajan may well be at his best throughout the second act of La bohème in the Latin Quarter, over the course of which everything seems to be happening at once. He knows just the right way to couple the rich polyphony of Puccini’s score with the polyphony of activity in the libretto, with a particularly high point when Musetta (Elizabeth Harwood) sings “Quando me’n vo’” (when I go along, better known as “Musetta’s waltz”). On the other hand I must confess that I find Butterfly more squirm-inducing every time I encounter it, particularly in this time of avoiding derogatory cultural stereotypes. I have nothing but loathing for B.F. Pinkerton; and, while Freni does her best to present Cio-Cio-san as more than a mere stereotype, I spent most of my time with this recording wishing that she were singing another opera.

Balancing levels of intensity is particularly challenging in Tosca, which roars its way through the opening measures and offers few episodes of quietude. In that context I have to say that Karajan delivers one of the best-managed accounts of managing the roller coaster dynamics of this opera. Both Price and Di Stefano are consistently attentive to Karajan’s management of both tempo and dynamic levels. Even Giuseppe Taddei’s account of Baron Scarpia is delivered with an intensity that gets beyond the “bad guy” clichés.

Speaking of clichés, the entire month of December makes me wish that I were a groundhog. I just want to dig into a deep hole to get away from the wanton excess of “holiday spirit” music, coming back to the surface after Epiphany when all the ceremonies have “officially” concluded. That said, I felt that I should at least try to give a fair listening to Christmas with Leontyne Price; and I found myself pleasantly surprised. Both Price and Karajan seemed to agree that these are relatively simple tunes that fare best when given subdued accounts. Those accounts owe much to the restrained rhetoric of arrangements prepared by Friedrich Meyer, and I found that I could even take comfort in how such restraint prevails over the usual hackneyed approaches that are impossible to avoid as part of the “holiday spirit.”