[78-L] Pagliacci set on British Columbia

[Philip Carli]

Dear David -- I've never found a flat two-word descriptive like "pretty awful" very informative or considered-sounding as an opinion. It just sounds like a toss-off.  I thought opinions & criticism had got past such statements that tend to crush discussion; hence what appears to be my "jumping down throats" in my reply.  It's not helpful, is it?  The recording itself is not "pretty awful"; _you_  find it pretty awful, and that's more to the point.  (I'd go through life happily never hearing another note of Mahler, or anything composed or conducted by Leonard Bernstein, but those are truly personal tastes and I'm willing to consider changing them some day.)  Make it clearly a personal statement rather than a graven-in-stone dictum.

And as to opera in English translation sounding ludicrous, it is a matter of culture, taste, and historical perspective.  I have dozens of recordings of operatic arias and entire works in translations from their original languages; who's to say those are ludicrous (except, perhaps, in the case of the French _Le Favorite_ being turned into _La Favorita_, where the Italian version makes demonstrably dramaturgical nonsense of the original)?  Who in modern poetic Italian would ever utter "Infelice! e tuo credevi"?  And o.k., we usually hear "M'appari" rather than "Ach, so fromm".  Which do we tee-hee? (And should we badger singers into the impenetrabilities of Czech to sing _Rusalka_ or _Prodana nevesta_ "correctly" or give them serviceable German, as was the 19th century custom,  or -- dare I say it? -- English versions to sing so we can hear them at all?  I heard the American premiere of _Rusalka_ as a child in San Diego and again at the English National Opera 12 years ago -- both in English.)

If you're at all interested (and you can skip this if you like), the _Pagliacci_ set is, to my ear, rather well conducted; hardly sluggish; the orchestra is a good cross-section of better-class (but not absolute-top) 1920s London orchestral playing (which was often a real gamble, but more characterful than German and more precise than Italian), with some fire and style.  (I actually tend to prefer not-quite-perfect playing to sterile perfection; more character and insight into what the musicians are doing.)  Mullings is impassioned but perhaps hard to like, and that's really rather interesting as he was such a commanding figure at the time and maybe _we're_ missing something.  Licette's light but pleasant, I can't fault Nash (he hasn't much to do) and Williams is solid and reliable, and sometimes really thrilling, but in the English style -- which may be the unattractive thing with the set overall for many people.  I got into a discussion on Evan Williams with an English colleague (I being anti-Williams), and I went back to the records and realized I was coming at his style the wrong way. The translation is the original, and many companies (including the Carl Rosa) used it to popularize the piece.  Give the floweriness the leeway of its period, as I daresay an Italian would argue for Leoncavallo's own text.  The set is a document of an interesting time in British opera, when the Old Vic was also doing opera in English to working-class audiences (there's a nice H. V. Morton piece on that), the Carl Rosa was performing everywhere from Hell to Huddersfield, and English Columbia decided to expend substantial trouble in making the UK's first electrical complete opera sets for a yet-untested public.

These are _my_ opinions, and they are only that. And I do jump!

Philip
________________________________________
From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com [78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of David Lennick [dlennick at sympatico.ca]
Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2010 10:20 PM
To: 78-L Mail List
Subject: Re: [78-L] Pagliacci set on British Columbia

Sorry, Philip. I've heard the set and if you prefer idiosyncratic, fine. I
transferred it and hoped I'd never have to listen to it again. As for the
conductor, my error, it's Eugene Goossens Senior. I was looking at a photocopy
of the album's liner and missed the "Snr". Why are you jumping down my throat
over a legitimate opinion which have been echoed on this list? Good singers,
bad concept. Opera in English was something considered a necessity at one point
and may still have its defenders, but even you'd have to admit that it can
sound pretty ludicrous.

dl

On 12/4/2010 9:54 PM, Philip Carli wrote:
> What a cheap dismissive comment. I have this set and the recent excellent CD transfer done in the UK and it's certainly idiosyncratic, but not  just unthinkingly "pretty awful". And which Goossens is it?  And which translation? And what's the history of the set? And why is it important (yes, it is)? I throw these out because I get annoyed at flip judgments.
> ________________________________________
> From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com [78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of David Lennick [dlennick at sympatico.ca]
> Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2010 7:16 PM
> To: 78-L Mail List
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Pagliacci set on British Columbia
>
> I've had this set..I may still have it (don't see it on the shelf) but I held
> onto the information. Matrix numbers are between WA 4999 and 5062. Features
> Heddle Nash, Miriam Licette, Dennis Noble, Frank Mullings and Harold Williams,
> conducted by Eugene Goossens, and as I recall it's pretty awful.
>
> dl
>
> On 12/4/2010 6:25 PM, Royal Pemberton wrote:
>> I wonder if they were any more or less consistent with that speed
>> specification compared with other labels of the time?  Somewhere in the
>> archives of 78-L one can find the exact matrix number at which UK Columbia's
>> standard speed became 78 (IIRC it was some time in 1927).
>>
>> On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 3:19 AM, Steven C. Barr<stevenc at interlinks.net>wrote:
>>
>>> From: "Glenn Longwell"<glongwell at snet.net>
>>>> I had someone write to me through my website asking if I was interested
>>> in
>>>> a 12 record set in a binder by the British National Opera Company
>>>> performing Pagliacci. He's located in the UK so shipping would be a bit
>>>> prohibitive to get it to me in the US. What struck me funny about the set
>>>> when I looked at the pictures was the speed was listed as 80rpm. Is this
>>>> indicative of a certain time period for British Columbias? I only have
>>> one
>>>> British Columbia of that label type in my collection and just looked at
>>>> it. Never noticed but it also says 80rpm.
>>> Anyone interested in this set?
>>>>
>>> During the early-mid twenties, British Columbia cited their speed as 80
>>> rpm!
>>>
>>> Steven C. Barr
>>>
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