Beniamino Gigli

I bought this compilation along with "The Very Best of Franco Corelli" because of the low price tag. I was highly anticipating Corelli's superpowered renditions of my favorites but it turns out that THIS compilation was the better shopping decision. Though Gigli seems to add certain inflections and high notes in places where one wouldn't normally expect, he makes it seem as if the songs were written that way(maybe they were). Gigli's voice soars above the outdated recording equipment used to capture it. He sings with sweetness and power, a rare combination. The religious and italian party songs are gems and the "Nessun Dorma" is done well even though he was at the end of his career. Gigli is always called "a worthy successor to Caruso" or "the best since Caruso". After hearing this compilation I don't know why he is not in a class by himself.

After Caruso's death, Beniamino Gigli became one of the most renowned tenors in the world. His rich voice well justified his reputation. While some of his mannerisms (the little "cries" and "catches" in his voice) can be a bit overdone, they were not atypical of the time. A few reactions to specific cuts.

"Celeste Aida" from Verdi's opera is smoothly sung; his rich voice serves to good effect. As already noted, the little "cries" are unfortunate, but hardly an issue. His higher notes flow smoothly from lower ones, in a seamless fashion. It would have been nice to hear him try for the piano at the end, but he did not choose to do so. Any way you slice it, a nice version of a glorious aria.

"La donna e mobile" is taken at a rather slow pace. It is smoothly sung but does not really catch the spirit of the wretched Duke. He shows wonderful breath control. This is more a workmanlike than scintillating version. On the other hand, "Che gelida manina" is wonderful. Smooth, elegant singing. A very well done high note. An iconic version.

The twin arias from "Tosca," "Recondita armonia" and "E lucevan le stelle" are very well executed. His rendering of the final "la vita" in the latter aria is, again, noteworthy.

And now for something completely different. . . . "Funiculi funicula" is spritely sung, in good spirits, and it is a lot of fun! Most enjoyable. "O Sole mio," likewise, is well rendered. As previously noted, some "off putting" cries, but the warm, full voice more than makes up for such mannerisms. He does not overpower this song with operatic technique. The end result is most satisfying.

"La danza" befuddled the great Caruso (in his version, his breathing fell apart at one point). But not Gigli. Well sung, good breath control. Bravo Gigli!

Back to opera. . . . "Nessun dorma" is well sung. The vocalization is smooth. Gigli's voice soars over orchestra and other voices. The final "Vincero" rings out.

While this CD is not without some questions, as noted above, it is worth 5 stars for its full portrayal of the work of Gigli. As such, it can be recommended for anyone who wants a comprehensive introduction to this singer.

It's an honor for me to be "the first" to review this recording for Amazon. As "opera lovers" know, Gigli was "the greatest tenor in the world" for many years after the death of Caruso. If you haven't heard Gigli, a great treat is in store for you! He had "penache" and drama in the way he sang. Plus he had a beautiful tonal quality! I could go on and on but if you "pass this guy up" you'll be missing some beautiful and dramatic singing from a "world class" singing actor.

Besides listening to Gigli on Cd, you'd be doing yourself a favor to buy a movie in which Gigli appears and sings. The movie is called "Non Ti Scordar di Me". I'll try to find it on amazon or from "The Bel Canto Society" and give it a "review" also. It's an "old movie" but it has a VERY touching story, is well acted, and you get to see and hear Gigli which is a great treat since he has been gone for at least 50 years. He "comes alive" in this CD and in the movie. You will "thrill" to the sound of his voice. Enjoy! Email:boland7214@aol.

Such is the nature of pop culture that beloved italian opera singer who sang classical music all his life,was upon his death remember chifely for his later Broadway succes,when in fact Broadway was just a short chapter in oterwise dignified and serious career.There is nothing wrong in "South Pacific" of course,but there is so much more to Pinza and this is why "Prima Voce" is important to represent how this thundering bass worked his way from Italy to Metroploitan.Lots of goodies here,my favourite arias from "Don Giovanni" and "Aida",also nice to cmpare his later recordings with very first ones done in Italy with conductor Carlo Sabajno (acoustic! before they started making elctric recordings) apparently his talent was there from the very start.Excellent.

There are more recorded "Bohemes" than one can count. But I always come back to this one. To me this is the most tender and moving performance that I've ever heard. Recorded in 1938 and I believe the first complete recording of this opera, the sound is not what today's listeners are use to, but if you can get past that you are in for a wonderful listening experience from the golden age of opera. Gigli's voice has a velvety sweetness that no other tenor can capture. And a very young Licia Albanese sings with such youth and innocence that she just breaks your heart. The whole cast sings with great feeling and they sound as though they are really enjoying themselves. There are a few ad-libs and exchanges among the singers that some purests have found annoying, But I find them charming and makes the characters seem more real to me.. I LOVE THIS RECORDING!!!

The Nimbus method of reprocessing historical recordings is particularly kind to singers who recorded by the acoustic process, before the advent of electric recording in 1925. In this third issue of their "Golden Age of Singing" series, Nimbus Records cover the years 1920-1930. About a dozen recordings from the pre-electric era are found here, including items by Galli-Curci and de Luca who featured in the second issue in this series. Other singers featuring again in this third series include Lotte Lehmann and Giovanni Martinelli, heard here in 1927 recordings.

Whatever criteria you use to assess anthologies of great singers, you will probably be well satisfied with this splendid issue. If you collect the works of particular singers, you will find not only representative but also rare items. I count the Pinza item as both. It shows him at his best, and has hitherto not found its ways into my CD collection. Occasionally items are not sung in their original language. Frida Leider's "Don Giovanni" aria sung in German in 1922 is preferred to her 1927 remake sung in Italian. Hina Spani sings Elsa's Dream in Italian. Some singers are recorded at the very end of their careers. Scottish soprano Mary Garden, Debussy's first Melisande, is heard in 1927 at her last recording session. Representing a miracle of good singing and longevity is Lucien Fugère recording a Gluck aria in 1928 at the age of 80. Tauber is heard near the beginning of his career in 1923. Youngest of all is the German baritone Gerhard Hüsch, aged 27.

I doubt that many who are considering purchase, every heard any of these singers. I happen to have heard two of them, when a very young man - Ninon Vallin and Elisabeth Schumann. To those who collect great voices on record, whether ever heard in performance or not, I restate that these Nimbus anthologies offer recreations of acoustic recordings that are well worth considering.

Beniamino Gigli (1890 - 1957) was one of the greatest all times tenors. He can be compared with Enrico Caruso, Tito Schipa or more recent late Luciano Pavarotti.
My grandmother told me of the commotion this tenor produced in Buenos Aires when performing in 1919. For her he was the greatest of all the tenors that sang at the Colon Opera Theater.

He was a major opera singer, but what Italian tenor could resist singing Neapolitan popular songs? No one. Least of all Mr. Gigli (even if he was born in a different province).
Here we are able to hear a complete selection of "canzzonetas", 46 of them nothing less!
Beniamino's open heart is here, in each song we can feel his soul flowing from his extraordinary voice.

I was looking for some other CD when I came across this collection and recalled my grandma's advice. I asked to hear it and was overwhelmed by his charisma, even if some songs are recorded with old technology, they do not lose quality.

Neapolitan "canzzonetas" make room for different moods: love songs, joy and festive songs, nostalgic songs, wine songs, nature loving songs. Here you'll be able to enjoy all of them.

Special mention in this two CD collection must be done for "a' Canzone E Napule", "Cuore `ngrato", "Tu sei la Vita Mia" and "Sto Penzanno a Maria", they are not the most popular as "O Sole Mio" or "Marechiare", but Gigli's voice and sentiment reach deep quality.
Enjoy this CD.
Ecco qui e Napule!!!!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.

Admirers of this famous tenor who wish to acquire a generous selection of his non-operatic recordings might think this double CD set might satisfy on all counts. It certainly provides familiar and unfamiliar, early and late recordings. There are some rarities here, and a full listing of recording details. The big drawback, however, is the sound quality. The remastering was done in the early days of Cedar processing. Somehow, the combination of Gigli's golden voice and the Cedar noise reduction process proved incompatible. While listening, I often responded as to fingernails being scraped over a blackboard, and no amount of knob twiddling could remedy the trouble.

The source material, however, includes some great recordings. If you think you have heard everything "Santa Lucia" has to offer, you'll find unguessed depths and detail in the way Gigli does it here with an accompaniment in charge of Sir John Barbirolli. "La Spagnola" has irresistible verve. The recordings are from 1918 to 1949.

I have many recordings of this work, and most are simply wonderful, full of fire and energy, and gripping to the extreme. Isn't that what Verismo was supposed to be, a slice of life? I came to this recordings late in my study of this opera. I followed with the score, and yes, the composer himself doesn't always follow what he wrote, but that makes me ask the question: is what he wrote really a true reflection of what he felt?

This recording is so slow, I mean SLOW, but at no time does it drag. I find it marvelous how the composer keeps movement, energy, and life in his work even though how he views his tempi are very different than how we see/hear them. Perhaps, through the years he mellowed and old age robbed him of the ability to conduct with great speed. Yet, something tells me that is not the case at all. Rather, with time, his view of his "first born" took on a different feeling for him, or maybe this was the correct feeling all along, but other conductors premiered the work and their interpretations of tempi, etc. became the norm.

Whatever the truth is, this is how he saw the work when he conducted it, and I am sure he heard many presentations of his opera over that 50 year period from the time it was created till the time he conducted it. There is a deep intensity of feeling in the music. It "Throbs" yet, it is not pushed, it is not rushed, it is not hectic. It is emotionally intense.

Some don't like Gigli sobbing in his lines of when he expresses emotions, especially when bidding farewell to his mother. Yet, if one reads all the discussions on how verismo was performed, those sobs (done by both men and women) were the norm. Even some yelling was not considered WRONG. Now days, we are used to very "cleaned up" performances. Ones that go back to the manuscript, where every single high note tradition is removed. Emotions are confined to the notes and the musical line and NOTHING ELSE IS ALLOWED.

Well, this is not the standard of this recording, or of what the composer himself expected from his work. He chose the singers, and I am sure he chose them knowing full well they used those "theatrics" in their singing.

But now, to the singers. They are simply wondrous, to me, and even though this is such an "old way" of performing a verismo work, I find it gives a great depth to the music and the drama. I wish sometimes we could see such emotional theatrics in the theatre today, rather than all those ever-so-correctly sung interpretations. The Santuzza (Lina Bruna Rasa) may sound like she would take the rolling pin to Turridu if he did anything wrong, but let us put this in perspective: this woman has been dumped and excommunicated for her affair with this man, and frankly, he cares less. A rolling pin to the head may be what he needs. Lola (Maria Marccucci), wonderfully sung for such a small part, is the cheating little vixen she appears, and we all know she is going to cover up her sinful ways by pretending to be so pure. Alfio (Geno Bechi) is a very wronged husband. He enters the opera filled with promise and life, coming home from a long day at work (or week away doing work) to what he thinks is a loving home. We hear that in this performance, and we hear the heart break as he learns his wife is sleeping around (granted, he hears it from a wrong former girl friend of the man sleeping with his wife, so he has to endure her spite in the telling, which is wonderfully portrayed). His "Hate" toward Turriddu is thick, one could cut it with a knife, yet, he never raves. All is said with composure.

And we get to enjoy an early recording of Simionato near the beginning of her career. Mamma Lucia is not a big role, nor does it develop in any real way, but still we are treated to a wonderful singer singing her notes with truth.

The other recorded items are also very interesting. Mascagni obviously felt music his way. I would not say it was wrong or right. He just felt his tempi as he felt them and not as a mechanical device counting them out. Personally, I love the expression he adds to the work. Since all the metronomic markings are all in brackets, one is led to believe they were more suggestions than definite requirements.

Mascagni conducts other people's music as he conducts his own, fully as he feels the various tempi markings. Sometimes, they are much slower than we are accustomed to, and as a conductor, he is not too fixated on "note perfection" and little slips do happen from time to time, but nothing is lost, or destroyed by this oversight. One is left wondering, what would Verdi have conducted like, or what of Bellini, or Wagner? Tempi are very different from composer to composer, and each style of music feels an andante differently. Mascagni felt things in a very expanded drawn out way, but at no time does he lose energy or focus as to where he intends to go. His singers obviously understood what he was after, for they never drag a line, or drop in their energy either.

This recording has its drawbacks, but it is a testiment to what a composer felt about his work, and we have so few of those. It reminds me of a discussion I had with a music teacher in my youth. In frustration with her I yelled, "When did you talk to the composer last?" She didn't appreciate my remark one bit. Well, here we have the opportunity of actually hearing "what the composer wanted." Whether we like it or not, is really very personal. It is very different to what we are accustomed to, but it is HIS final word on the issue, and with that we can all say to conductors, directors, and the lot who really frustrate us with how they do things, "Well, we have heard what the composer wanted, he documented that, so, how close are you to what he wanted?"

My review is based upon the original RCA Treasury Series recording. Despite its age, this is the quintessential Cavelleria Rusticano. The principals are all outstanding. My one caveat is the excessive sobbing in the last act's "Farewell to his Mother" by Beniamino Gigli, the opera's Turrido. Otherwise this tenor, whose singing is generally not my personal "cup of tea," does a great job. Lina Bruna Rasa has the perfect voice for Santuzza, and she pulls out all the stops. Bechi is a very convincing Alfio. Altogether, this is melodrama done in the true, southern Italian Style. Mascagni, who conducts "his own child" fifty years after its first presentation, makes some brief opening remarks. They are both apt and touching. I have numerous recordings of this opera, including the excellent Callas version. This one is by far the best.

Ward Marston transfers of historic opera recordings continue be issued by Naxos. This one is noteworthy for several reasons: it offers the best and cheapest available edition of Mascagni conducting his own opera, and it has Beniamino Gigli in the tenor role.

Some comments on the composer/conductor first. In 1940 it was fifty years since "Cavelleria Rusticana" debuted in Rome. The 76 year old composer was invited to conduct the recording, select the singers, and present an introductory speech. Sounding like a gladiator of former times addressing the crowd in the coliseum, Pietro Mascagni provides a two minute speech, here printed in the notes in translation. He directs a performance that is neither true to the original score nor calculated to present the opera's best features. You need only to listen to the famous intermezzo, where you'll hear dynamic and tempo exaggerations in the "big tune" that are not indicated in the score.

Earlier, in fact during the opening orchestral prelude, you'll hear a production fault that Mascagni apparently ignored. A feature of this work, credited with being the first "verismo" (true to life) opera, is the interpolation of an off-stage "Siciliana" sung by the tenor Turiddu to Lola, the wife of Alfio, during the opera's orchestral prelude. Any suggestion that Turiddu wants to maintain their hopeless involvement is destroyed when we hear singing so loud from Beniamino Gigli as to suggest that Turiddu wants the whole of Sicily to know about it. Yes, Gigli is in fine voice, but his habit of adding a gulp or an extra note at the beginning of almost every phrase is an unwelcome crudity.

Lina Bruna Rasa, a singer usually institutionalised at this time due to psychiatric problems, makes Santuzza sound like the sort of future wife for Turiddu who would be handier with the rolling pin than in dispensing tender loving care. Gino Bechi, early in his career, and Giulietto Siminionato, even earlier, take the parts of Alfio and Mamma Lucia.

Because this performance with its introductory speech extends beyond the limit of a single CD, Naxos have filled the additional space on the second CD with transfers of some extremely rare recordings made by Pietro Mascagni conducting a Berlin orchestra in Rossini and Verdi overtures, and orchestral sequences from several of his own operas. Recording dates are not provided; I guess them to be from the late 1920s.