The task undertaken by Opera Rara in this recording is of great importance in the sociological study of music history. Even if the results are less than perfect, largely because of the raw sound of this live performance, the enterprise is intriguing and highly instructive.
The role of women in the history of music has yet to be explored in sufficient detail. A recent concert at the Wigmore Hall explored the music of Adela Maddison, who was a formidable pianist and composer and possibly one of Gabriel Fauré's lovers. Opera Rara's new recording captures another Wigmore Hall recital, this time investigating the life and works of the singer and composer, Pauline Viardot.
Born into a highly musical family, Viardot's education included piano lessons from Franz Liszt. Her father, Manuel García, was a famous opera singer who created the roles of Norfolk in Rossini's Elisabetta and Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia. Her sister was the famous prima donna Maria Malibran, while her brother was a baritone. In 1826, Garcia's family went to America and staged the first performances of Italian opera in New York; remarkably, the family themselves took all the main parts in performances of Il barbiere di Siviglia, with Garcia as Almaviva, his son as Figaro and Maria as Rosina. Around that time, Mozart's greatest librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, was lecturing in America and encouraged the company to perform Don Giovanni, which was subsequently given its first American performance in the presence of its librettist.
When Maria died, Pauline became the family's new star singer, taking on roles in Rossini's Otello and Semiramide and Bellini's I Capuleti e I Montecchi. Her acquaintances included Chopin, Berlioz (who described her as 'one of the greatest artists.in the past and present of music history'), Schumann, Dickens, George Sand, and Turgenev, with whom she was romantically connected.
She died in 1910, having lived through one of the greatest periods of the development of the Lied. Opera Rara's new recording showcases songs written by and for Viardot, spanning composers such as Chopin, Berlioz and Rossini. Sadly, the three singers featured on the CDs are none of them at the top of their form in this recital. Mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade remains a formidable interpreter of words but sounds past her best and has a wayward vibrato; soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci has poor intonation and produces very harsh sounds when sweetness is called for; and although Russian baritone Vladimir Chernov is ideally idiomatic in the songs written in his native tongue, he also has tuning problems.
Still, the material is interesting enough to warrant repeated hearings of the discs. Von Stade and Antonacci communicate the humour of Rossini's duet La regata veneziana with flair, and it's wonderful to hear both Viardot's and Chopin's attempts at writing a Berceuse (lullaby); Chopin's influence over Viardot is apparent but she makes the form her own. Von Stade is joined by cellist David Watkin for Viardot's beautiful Die Sterne and Berlioz's La captive, making for an evocative couple of ensembles, while Antonacci clearly relishes the wide emotional palette of Viardot's Scène d'Hermione.
Although some of the songs are more successful than others, Viardot's mastery of composing in several languages - German, Italian, French and Russian are represented here - and her ability both to use and go beyond the conventions of the time are highly impressive. In spite of the mixed quality of the performances (and a highly irritating and unengaging commentary by the French actress Fanny Ardant), this is still a very commendable release and deserves wider attention.