Maazel’s Final Warner Opera Disappoints

Cover of the Warner Classics album of Thaïs

Some readers may recall that this month began with my venture into the CDs collected in Lorin Maazel: The Complete Warner Edition. The very fact that the first of those two CDs accounted for symphonies by Anton Bruckner was enough to get my juices flowing! This morning I concluded the journey with the last of the three operas in the collection, Jules Massenet’s Thaïs. Ironically, this listening experience took place very shortly after I had seen another Massenet opera, Manon, performed by San Francisco Opera at the War Memorial Opera House. Sadly, the title of my article about that performance was “Not the Best Afternoon at the Opera!”

To be fair, I am sure there are many opera lovers that would be eager to attend Massenet offerings and would avoid any opportunity to listen to a Bruckner symphony in Davies Symphony Hall! Put another way, attentive listening is subjective, rather than objective; and subjectivity is, of course, a matter of personal taste. In my case listening to Maazel’s performance of Thaïs was much more of an ordeal than listening to his interpretations of Bruckner symphonies!

That said, Maazel brought together some of the best-known opera vocalists for his Thaïs recording. That began with soprano Beverly Sills in the title role. Athanaël, the Cenobite monk that tries to convert Thaïs to Christianity is performed by baritone Sherrill Milnes, and one could not ask for a more solid delivery. The same can be said of tenor Nicolai Gedda in the role of the nobleman Nicias, who is Thaïs’ current lover. The roles have the makings for an engaging plot; but the music for that plot unfolds over the course of two and one-half hours (not including the intermission between the two acts when the opera is performed).

These days vocalists such as Sills, Gedda, and Milnes are all but forgotten, even by collectors of recordings. My personal regret is that I almost never had an opportunity to see any of them perform, simply because I was never in the right place at the right time. Indeed, I think my only encounter with Gedda took place when I saw him in a performance of La Traviata at the Metropolitan Opera; and, as I put it at that time, he was “too far past his prime” and only looked silly. Milnes, on the other hand, I have only known through recordings.

Things being what they are, Thaïs is likely to be the least-visited recording in my personal collection of the Maazel anthology!