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.