Recovering the Forgotten Singer: Margarete Klose (1899-1968)

From the 1930s through the mid-20^th century, Ebe Stignani, the acknowledged queen of dramatic mezzo-sopranos, reigned at La Scala, guested widely in Europe, appeared in North and South America (but never at the Met) and committed authoritative renditions of the classic Verdi roles to disc. (insert) Margarete Klose, would have given Stignani a run for the money if she had sung Amneris, Eboli, and Azucena in Italian rather than German. It was the practice in the major European opera houses to use the vernacular—La Forza del destino was Die Macht des Schicksals in Vienna; Götterdämmerung became Il Crepuscolo degli dei in Milan. Klose appeared in London, Brussels, Buenos Aires, and briefly in San Francisco and Los Angeles, but primarily in the German repertoire. A Bayreuth regular, she was a peerless Ortrud, Brangäne, Fricka; Germany and Austria heard her Verdi and Gluck roles auf Deutsch.

Her voice was exceptionally equalized, at home at the extremes of her range, her timbre rich and instantly recognizable. Klose was notable in the Classical utterances of Orfeo and Alceste and in the Romantic outbursts of Eboli and Azucena. In this clip, from a 1938 recording, the finely sculped phrases of Alceste demonstrate her gorgeous tone and scrupulous musicality. The Queen of Thessaly despairs of her husband’s death and beseeches pity from the nether gods in “Divinités du Styx ("Ihr Götter ew'ger nacht").

 

Klose was justly famous for her Orfeo, in both Italian and German. Here is the aria, “Che faro senza Euridice," sung in Italian on a post-War complete recording of Orfeo ed Euridice. 

 

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Klose conquers the extended range, the declamations and lyric phrases, and the dynamic contrast demanded by “O Don fatale (“Verhängnisvoll war das Geschenk)” from Don Carlo. The German-language text in no way inhibits Eboli’s Italianate passion. 

Klose’s seamless legato and luscious timbre combine for an irresistibly seductive Dalila. She sings “Mon Coeur s’ouvre à ta voix (Sieh, mein Herz erschließet sich).” In this mid-1940s clip, the Berlin Philharmonic is conducted by the legendary but allergic-to-recordings Sergiu Celibidache.

 

 

P.S. Highly recommended, from YouTube, are the arias from Un Ballo in Maschera and Il Trovatore, in German.

 

 

The Beautiful Voice, 2: Cesare Siepi

It took no time for Ezio Pinza to be acknowledged as the Met’s leading bass. He sang important roles in 1926, his debut season, and by 1929, when he was awarded the title role in Don Giovanni, he attained the star status he would enjoy until he left the company in 1947. A successor would need to be a basso cantante with a gorgeous timbre, acting skill, and photogenic good looks. Cesare Siepi fit the bill.

Siepi made his Met debut on Rudolf Bing’s 1950 opening night as general manager. King Philip II, a key role in the new production of Verdi’s Don Carlo, was announced for the charismatic Boris Christoff. But the U.S. government, entrenched in Cold War fear of Communists, denied a visa to the Bulgarian Christoff. The handsome young Siepi (not yet thirty years old) stunned the public and continued to do so for more than twenty seasons. He endowed roles in Verdi, Mozart, Gounod, and eventually even Wagner with impeccable musicianship, compelling dramatic presence, and a voice immediately identifiable for its plush velvet.

Here is the aria, “Ella giammai m’amò,” that won that 1950 opening night audience. Siepi’s limpid diction and silken timbre, equalized from the lowest to the highest register, capture King Philip’s realization that his wife never loved him. Siepi uncannily echoes the mournful cello solo of the long introduction. He repeats, with touching sadness “amor per me no ha” (she has no love for me). The clip is from a recital recording.

Siepi has sung Don Giovanni more often at the Met than any other Met artist. No Zerlina could resist his seductive “Là, ci darem la mano” (Give me your hand). Hilde Güden is the compliant soprano; Josef Krips conducts the Vienna Philharmonic.

Alas, Met audiences never heard Siepi in La Sonnambula. This early recording documents his affinity for Bellini’s bel canto phrases. Count Rodolfo recalls the beauty and serenity of the rural landscape he knew in his youth.

When Pinza left the Met he found tremendous success in the Rogers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. Siepi tried Broadway twice (Bravo Giovanni in 1962 and Carmelina in 1979). Although he received excellent notices, the shows did not. He commands the appropriate style for the Great American Songbook in his ravishing rendition of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day.”

The Met’s All-Star La Bohème

 

 

La Bohème has racked up more performances at the Met than any other opera. Given nearly every season since 1900, it surpassed the previous champion, Aïda, long ago. Its current production, designed and staged by Franco Zeffirelli in 1981, is closing in on its six hundredth iteration. Zeffirelli’s aerial garret, two-level Parisian street scene, and snowy Act III win more applause than casts often headed by second tier singers. This post features highlights from the opera performed by Met stars of the past.

Claudia Muzio sang Mimì infrequently, and only at the beginning of her Met career. This recording of “Mi chiamano Mimì” was made in 1935, shortly before her premature death. Her attention to detail conjures up the presence of the man to whom she is describing herself. Like Bergonzi, she never exceeds the expressive dimensions set by Puccini.

The love duet that closes Act I, “O soave fanciulla,” catches Renata Tebaldi and Jussi Björling in peak form. The clip is from a 1956 telecast. Although Tebaldi and Björling co-starred at the Met but once (Tosca), they performed together live in concert and on several recordings. Rodolfo was the role of Björling’s Met debut in 1938; the second performance of Tebaldi’s first Met season (1954-1955) was as Mimì. Constrained by the TV camera, they win no acting awards, but, singing live, their gorgeous voices brilliantly portray the young lovers.

 

Rudolf Bing cast Ljuba Welitsch, his Salome and Aïda, in the secondary role of Musetta in order to discourage Patrice Munsel, his reigning soubrette, from taking on Mimì. He succeeded. Munsel wisely begged off, fearing the competition of the flamboyant Welitsch, although seven years later she ventured Mimì on the Met stage. Welitsch’s single Met Musetta (January 30, 1952) is remembered for her farcical overplaying—she rode Marcello piggy-back--and the beauty of her singing. Her 1949 recording of the famous waltz, conducted by none other than Josef Krips, is a lesson in how the aria should be delivered.

 Mimì was one of the roles Victoria de los Angeles sang most often at the Met. Her ineffably sweet timbre conveys, with utter simplicity, the sadness of Mimì’s Act III “addio” (a farewell albeit deferred) to Rodolfo. The clip is from the marvelous complete recording conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.

 Rodolfo and Marcello lament their lost sweethearts at the start of Act IV. The duet of Beniamino Gigli and Giuseppe De Luca was a highlight of Bohème performances in the 1920s and 1930s. De Luca’s credentials include the creation of two Puccini roles, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly at La Scala in 1904 and the title role in Gianni Schicchi at the Met in 1918. Gigli sang Rodolfo often at the Met; his late-1930s complete recording of La Bohème was a best-seller.

P.S. Enrico Caruso and Nellie Melba were early exponents of La Bohème. In a tour performance in Los Angeles, Melba was the company’s first Mimì. Mary Garden commented that Melba’s high C at the end of the first act love duet was one of the most beautiful notes she had ever heard. Caruso still leads the list of Met tenors who have sung Rodolfo. This clip is from a recording made in 1907, less than a decade after the opera premiered in Turin.

 

 

The Beautiful Voice, 1: Margaret, the Other Price

Operaphiles generally agree about singers whose prime attribute is a beautiful voice. Before recognizing musicality, charisma, interpretation, diction, personality, they comment on timbre: the dominant adjectives are “creamy”, “sweet,” “dulcet.” This blog has devoted posts to singers initially beloved for their “beautiful voice, among them Kathleen Ferrier, Renata Tebaldi, Dorothy  Maynor, and Rosa Ponselle. This is the first in a series of posts focused specifically on artists endowed with a “beautiful” voice.

Two sopranos shared a family name, a repertoire, an era, and esteem for the luscious quality of their timbre. Margaret Price (1941-2011
) was more than a decade younger than Leontyne Price (1927- ). Although her career was centered  in Europe, with particular allegiance to the opera companies of Cologne and Munich, Margaret sang frequently in Chicago and San Francisco. She rarely performed with the Met--less than twenty times between 1985 and 1995; Leontyne was a major Met star; her tally was over two hundred performances between 1961 and 1985. They are both remembered for the Donna Annas of Don Giovanni, Fiordiligis of Così fan tutte, and Amelias of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera. They sang Aïda, Margaret much less successfully than Leontyne, for  whom it was a signature role (Leontyne once replaced an indisposed Margeret in a San Francisco Aïda). Margaret excelled as Mozart’s Konstanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), a bravura assignment Leontyne never attempted. As far as I know, Margaret never took on La Forza del destino, one of Leontyne’s specialties. Her favorite Verdi assignment was Elisabetta in Don Carlo, never to be Leontyne’s lot.

Margaret Price’s discography is extensive and covers the breadth of her repertoire. The YouTube clips referenced in this post give some idea of the clarity and extraordinary texture of her voice but, alas, cannot reproduce the magic of her sound as it was heard live.

Margaret often said that she became a singer because she loved lieder. The first clip is Mahler’s song “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I Am so Lost to the World),” based on a poem by Friedrich Rückert. Here is a translation of the last lines: “I am now dead to the world's commotion/ And, resting in this silent retreat,/ I live alone in my own heaven,/ In my own loving, in my own song.” The soprano captures the touching introspection of the piece and engages in a haunting duet with the often repeated English horn solo.

Mozart was a key figure in Margaret Price’s early success and enduring career. She
made her debut in the mezzo-soprano role of Cherubino before moving upward to the
challenging soprano leads of Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. Many theatres heard her Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro. Here is the great Act III aria “Dove sono I bei momenti (Where have all those happy moments gone)” from a 1984 live concert in San Francisco. Price conveys the agitation of the recitative, then the Contessa’s sad reflection on her happy past, when she was certain of the love of her philandering husband and, finally, in the spirited cabaletta, on her hope to regain it. Of note, in addition to the stunning quality of Price’s timbre, is the rhythmic precision of her phrasing and embellishments and the perfection of her attacks, all serving the
vivid expression of mood and character.

Margret Price sang Verdi frequently, unleashing the opulence of her voice in the expansive melodramatics of his scores. Her favorite Verdi role, Elisabetta, calls upon the wealth of the soprano’s resources as she addresses the tomb of Charlemagne (“Tu, che le vanità conoscesti del mondo [You have known the vanities of this world]”), lamenting her lost love, Don Carlo, her loveless marriage to his father, King Philip, and her hope to protect Carlo from Philip’s wrath. Price, the impeccable singer of lieder and the classical Mozart stylist, is also an authentically demonstrative Verdian spinto. The clip is from a 1986 concert conducted by Christoph Eschenbach.

The most surprising excerpt in this post comes from a complete recording of Tristan and Isolde. Isolde is a role that calls for the sturdiest lungs, the greatest volume, the strength of a Kirsten Flagstad, Helen Traubel, Birgit Nilsson, to name only its most illustrious exponents at the Metropolitan Opera. Margaret Price, who never considered herself a Wagnerian or a dramatic soprano, of course never agreed to sing Isolde live, on stage; she did answer the call of conductor Carlos Kleiber to commit the role to a recording. Here, her “beautiful,” young, lyric voice gives subtle and revelatory expression to Wagner’s Irish princess. For many, it is the definitive recorded Isolde. The “Liebestod,” is a fitting climax to Price’s unerring traversal of Isolde’s journey.

 

PS: Margaret Price even excels in Puccini, as you will hear in this excerpt from a complete recording of Turandot, conducted by Roberto Abbado (nephew of Claudio Abbado). She sings, of course, Liù, not the title role. Here is her touching rendition of the Act III aria, “Tu, che di gel sei cinta, (You, who are girdled in ice).”