Verdi: Macbeth (complete opera live 1952) with Maria Callas, Enzo Mascherini, Victor de Sabata, Orchestra & Chorus of La Scala, Milan

Verdi: Macbeth (complete opera live 1952) with Maria Callas, Enzo Mascherini, Victor de Sabata, Orchestra & Chorus of La Scala, Milan

Verdi: Macbeth (complete opera live 1952) with Maria Callas, Enzo Mascherini, Victor de Sabata, Orchestra & Chorus of La Scala, Milan
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CD Details

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
Conductor: Victor De Sabata
Orchestra: Orchestra e coro del Teatro alla Scala
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1998-03-17
Music Label: EMI Classics
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
  1. Macbeth: Preludio
  2. Macbeth: Act One: Scene One - Che faceste? Dite su!
  3. Macbeth: Act One: Scene One - Giorno non vidi mai (Macbeth - Banco)
  4. Macbeth: Act One: Scene One - Pro Macbetto! Il tuo signore
  5. Macbeth: Act One: Scene One - Due vaticini compiuti or sono (Macbeth - Banco)
  6. Macbeth: Act One: Scene One - S'allontanarono!
  7. Macbeth: Act One: Scene Two - Nel di della vittoria io le incontrai
  8. Macbeth: Act One: Scene Two - Vien! t'affretta! (Lady Macbeth)
  9. Macbeth: Act One: Scene Two - Al cader della sera il re qui giunge (Lady Macbeth)
  10. Macbeth: Act One: Scene Two - Or tutti sorgete, ministri infernali (Lady Macbeth)
  11. Macbeth: Act One: Scene Two - Oh, donna mia! (Macbeth - Lady Macbeth)
  12. Macbeth: Act One: Scene Two - Sappia la sposa mia (Macbeth)
  13. Macbeth: Act One: Scene Two - Regna il sonno su tutti
  14. Macbeth: Act One: Scene Two - Fatal mia donna! un murmure
  15. Macbeth: Act One: Scene Two - Allor questa voce m'intesi nel petto
  16. Macbeth: Act One: Scene Two - Il pugnal la riportate (Lady Macbeth - Macbeth)
  17. Macbeth: Act One: Scene Two - Di destarlo per tempo il re m'impose
  18. Macbeth: Act One: Scene Two - Schiudi, inferno (Macduff - Banco - Lady Macbeth - Macbeth)
  19. Macbeth: Act Two: Scene One - Perche mi sfuggi (Lady Macbeth - Macbeth)
  20. Macbeth: Act Two: Scene One - La luce langue (Lady Macbeth)
  21. Macbeth: Act Two: Scene Two - Chi v'impose unirvi a noi?
  22. Macbeth: Act Two: Scene Two - Studia il passo, o mio figlio!
  23. Macbeth: Act Two: Scene Two - Come dal ciel precipita (Banco)
  24. Macbeth: Act Two: Scene Three - Salve, o re! (Macbeth - Lady Macbeth)
  25. Macbeth: Act Two: Scene Three - Si colmi il calice (Lady Macbeth - Macduff)
  26. Macbeth: Act Two: Scene Three - Tu di sangue hai brutto il volto (Macbeth)
  27. Macbeth: Act Two: Scene Three - Che ti scosta, o re mio sposo (Lady Macbeth - Macbeth)
  28. Macbeth: Act Two: Scene Three - Si colmi il calice
  29. Macbeth: Act Two: Scene Three - Sangue a me quell'ombra chiede (Lady Macbeth - Macduff - Macbeth)
Music CD 2
  1. Macbeth: Act Three - Tre volte miagola la gatta in fregola
  2. Macbeth: Act Three - Ballo
  3. Macbeth: Act Three - Finche appelli (Macbeth)
  4. Macbeth: Act Three - Fuggi, regal fantasima (Macbeth)
  5. Macbeth: Act Three - Ondine e silfidi dall'ali candide
  6. Macbeth: Act Three - Ove son io? (Macbeth - Lady Macbeth)
  7. Macbeth: Act Four: Scene One - Patria oppressa!
  8. Macbeth: Act Four: Scene One - O figli miei!
  9. Macbeth: Act Four: Scene One - Ah, la paterna mano (Macduff)
  10. Macbeth: Act Four: Scene One - Dove siam? che bosco e quello? (Macduff)
  11. Macbeth: Act Four: Scene Two - Vegliammo invan due notti
  12. Macbeth: Act Four: Scene Two - Una macchia e qui tuttora (Lady Macbeth)
  13. Macbeth: Act Four: Scene Three - Perfidi! All'Anglo contro me v'unite!
  14. Macbeth: Act Four: Scene Three - Pieta, rispetto, amore (Macbeth)
  15. Macbeth: Act Four: Scene Three - Ella e morta!
  16. Macbeth: Act Four: Scene Four - All'armi! all'armi! (Macduff - Macbeth)
  17. Macbeth: Act Four: Scene Four - Vittoria! (Macduff)

Music reviews of Verdi: Macbeth (complete opera live 1952) with Maria Callas, Enzo Mascherini, Victor de Sabata, Orchestra & Chorus of La Scala, Milan

Music Review: The remarkable Callas opening night "Macbeth" at La Scala in 1952
Rating: 5 Stars

SOURCE:
This live recording presents the opening night of the 1952-53 opera season at La Scala in Milan, December 7, 1952. It was a particularly lavish event, for Maria Callas was the bright, new star of the day and this "Macbeth" was the first opera to be telecast live from the stage at La Scala. Facts are, to say the least, in short supply, but my guess is that it was captured off the air by some enthusiast and is here given the semblance of legitimacy by EMI.

SOUND:
Dedicated audiophiles, turn away right now. This recording is not for you.

To those with more sense, I must explain that the very considerable virtues of this "Macbeth" lie in the performance and not in the sound reproduction. Overall, the sound is minimally acceptable, if not much more. It is restricted and boxy, there is occasional unbalance in the orchestra and, for those willing to strain a bit, fortunately little distortion in the loud and high passages, but a bit of pre- and post-echo.

Simply accept this opera as heard over a middle-quality AM radio--or television set--in 1952 (as might, indeed, have been the actual case.)


CAST:
MACBETH (aka Macbetto) - new-made Thane of Cawdor and tyrannical king that shall be - Enzo Mascherini (baritone)
LADY MACBETH (aka Lady), wife, co-conspirator and dedicated foe of d----d spots - Maria Callas (soprano)
MACDUFF (pronounced "Macdoof" in these parts), a man with a SERIOUS grievance who was from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd - Gino Penno (tenor)
BANQUO (aka Banco) - not a king himself, but ancestor to the Stuart kings - Italo Tajo (bass)
MALCOLM, son of the murdered King Duncan, who would reign as Malcolm III Canmore (="Big Chief") after Macbeth's death - Luciano della Pergola (tenor)
LADY-IN-WAITING to Lady Macbeth - Angela Vercelli (soprano)
DOCTOR - Dario Caselli (bass)
SERVANT - Attilio Barbesi (bass)
HERALD - Ivo Vinco (bass)
ASSASSIN - Mario Tommasini (bass)

CONDUCTOR:
Victor de Sabata, with the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala, Milano.

TEXT:
This recording offers a nearly complete performance of the currently accepted standard version of the opera, the substantially revised text first presented to the public in 1865. There are a few cuts, mostly trimming some repetitions within individual numbers, and serving little or no discernible purpose. The absence of the first unaccompanied "O figli" from the recitative preceding Macduff's aria is so pointless that I can only assume that it marks an accidental omission on the original master recording.

COMMENTARY:
Verdi was a great admirer of the Bard of Avon. Among the few volumes found on a shelf near his bed after his death was a well-thumbed set of Shakespeare in Italian translation. The younger Verdi was particularly attracted to "Macbeth," "King Lear" and "The Tempest." Even the remote possibility that he might have set the latter two to music is enough to make a true Verdi fan throw up his (or her) hands while railing against fate and history.

"Macbeth" was probably Verdi's favorite amongst his earlier works. It premiered on March 14, 1847 at La Pergola in Florence, a year after "Attila" and six months before "I masnadieri." Its text is noticeably more faithful to Shakespeare's original than either "Otello" or "Falstaff," both written many years later. It was too faithful, as a matter of fact, for it contained a final dying speech for Macbeth, exactly as it was then being performed on the London stage. Years later, Verdi discovered that the speech was entirely bogus, a mere sop to the ego of the leading men who liked to go with a rattling final send-off. Verdi expunged that final death scene without a qualm.

Clearly, though, he did have some qualms about other parts of the opera. Almost two decades later, when he was well into his middle period and universally acclaimed as the great man of Italian opera, he returned to "Macbeth" revising, tightening up, casting some things out and adding others, in particular, the tremendous "La luce langue." To those who care desperately about such matters, there is a jangling mixture of styles in the revised version. As it so happens, I am one who couldn't care less.

Even though the mature Verdi had some second thoughts, it is clear that the youthful Verdi had a lot on the ball. "Macbeth," for example, marks the emergence of that new species, the Verdi baritone. Macbeth, as the great baritone Tito Gobbi put it, has "dramatic declamation" and "tessitura of an almost giddy height''. Gobbi studied the part for years but quailed before the thought of attempting it on stage. The very first Macbeth was Felice Veresi, who would later also become the first Rigoletto and the first Giorgio Germont in "La Traviata."

Lady Macbeth, likewise, is far from the typical Italian song bird of the period. The first Lady Macbeth, Marianna Barbieri-Nini, wrote years later with perhaps a little exaggeration that Verdi rehearsed the big first act duet for Lady Macbeth and her murderous husband more than "one hundred and fifty times so that it might be, as Verdi used to say, more spoken than sung." It ought to be noted that Verdi was just thirty-three years old at the time ... and that extensive or even dress rehearsals were virtually unknown at Italian opera houses of the day.

A month before this opening night at La Scala, Maria Callas had wowed London with her Norma--while sharing the stage with a very young Joan Sutherland, who sang a small comprimario part. In "Macbeth" Callas determined to give a very different performance. Verdi had famously stated that Lady Macbeth should be "ugly and evil." Callas agreed and later said "the role, and therefore the voice should have an atmosphere of darkness." That is what we here on this recording. A small minority at the time didn't accept her consciously chosen lack of vocal beauty and wrote vociferously on the matter. The vast majority, though, were simply awed. The recording discretely cuts away, but in fact she received seven curtain calls after the sleepwalking scene, alone.

By the way, Callas finished with the part on December 17 and never again appeared in "Macbeth" during her lifetime.

Many who have written of this performance have tended to treat it as a sort of solo recital by Callas. It is plainly more than that. The conductor was the under-recorded de Sabata who would soon lead the great "Tosca" with Callas, Gobbi and di Stefano. He was one of the handful of conductors who knew exactly how to get the best from the budding La Divina.

The Macbeth was Enzo Mascherini (1910-1981). He had been a pupil of not one but two great baritones, Ruffo and Stracciari. Mascherini made his professional debut in 1937 and had served as a good, solid, reliable baritone in the core repertory into the 1950s with "La Boheme," "Faust," Pagliacci" and "Andrea Chenier. He may be heard with Callas once again in "I vespri Siciliani." He is clearly not the greatest of Macbeths, but he certainly is a competent one, coping quite satisfactorily with Gobbi's feared dramatic declamation and giddy tessitura.

The Banquo was Italo Tajo (1915-1993). He was one of the best Italian basses of his time. His professional debut took place in 1935 as Fafner, of all things. Much later, he would take over from Ezio Pinza in the Broadway production of "South Pacific." In the meantime, he became a specialist in the comic roles in opera. He became a well-respected teacher and head of opera programs in the United States and sang his last stage roles as late as 1991. In the natural course of life among Italian opera singers, he also engaged in a fairly famous feud with Callas years after this "Macbeth." On this particular opening night, it can't be denied that he started off a bit shakily, but he rapidly pulled himself together and was singing well by the end of his truncated part.

About the fourth leading member of the cast, there are no ifs or buts or qualifications: he is simply terrific as Macduff. Gino Penno (1920-1998) was a dramatic tenor whose professional career flashed and sizzled and burnt out in the course of a single decade. Fan memory, that most unreliable source of information, recalls him as a singer with a huge voice, one even louder than that of Mario del Monaco. He specialized in the big, heroic parts in "Il trovatore," "Aida, "Medea," "La forza del destino," even "Lohengrin" and "Die Walkure"--the latter two in Italian, of course. (The is a recording of an Italian-language version of "Lohengrin" with Penno, Tebaldi, Guelfi and Neri that must be absolutely extraordinary.) Most of his career was in Italy and sadly for his memory, his studio recordings were made in the CETRA-ghetto. He had an excellent, although not very Italianate sound, but there must have been something wrong with his technique. Toward the end of his career, he broke loose from Italy and sang internationally, including two seasons at the Metropolitan Opera. Fan memory holds that his Met career ended when he simply ran out of voice attempting the high-C in "Il trovatore's" "Di quella pira." The red-meat-hungry fans of the day were not going to accept THAT kind of insult, no sir! He was not asked to return and that was pretty much the end of him--or so the old fans say.

The role of Macduff pretty much lives or dies on the one big aria in the last act. As fate would have it, I am currently looking at the parts of Macduff and Malcolm in which I'll be alternating in performances in the fall. Let me assure you that Penno does everything with the aria that can be done. I'm vastly impressed ... and no little dismayed by how much better he was than I could ever hope to be.

This is a recording of a historic production which offers some remarkable performances. For that reason, I give it five solid stars. For those whose taste is limited to the mere mechanical reproduction of sound, it is probably a three- or three-and-a-half-star set.
More Verdi: Macbeth (complete opera live 1952) with Maria Callas, Enzo Mascherini, Victor de Sabata, Orchestra & Chorus of La Scala, Milan free music reviews:
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Description of Verdi: Macbeth (complete opera live 1952) with Maria Callas, Enzo Mascherini, Victor de Sabata, Orchestra & Chorus of La Scala, Milan

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