Today I listened to the first complete opera recording in Toscanini's official discography, a fascinating performance of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio. Toscanini was predominately active as an opera conductor until well into the second half of his career, but his recorded legacy from the stage is very sparse. The only complete staged operas that survive are four works recorded during the 1937 Salzburg Festival; beyond that there are only bits and pieces from earlier Salzburg seasons and one post-war concert from La Scala in which staged scenes from a variety of operas were performed. Fortunately there are also the seven operas he performed in concert with NBC, most of which come from the core repertory of the early days of his career. Although his concert presentations of these operas should not be considered completely representative of how he performed them on the stage (the practical concerns of staging always end up affecting the musical product) they serve as useful latter-day souvenirs of one of the most brilliant eras in the history of operatic theatre.
Beethoven: Fidelio - December 10th and 17th, 1944
To perform a German opera live on the radio, and to have sung it in German during the height of World War II was a feat that could only have been pulled off by Arturo Toscanini. The United States has never had the best history with maintaining tolerance during wartime, and the fact that this performance of Fidelio apparently came off without controversy is an indication of the extraordinary respect the public had for Toscanini. And of course Fidelio, with its profound message of political liberty, was exactly the right opera for the time. The fact that it was performed in German made it all the more poignant, as proof that the cause of freedom knew no national boundaries, even at a time when the most unspeakable atrocities of the 20th century were being committed.
As in the case of the Leningrad Symphony broadcast of two years earlier, this complete performance of Fidelio is more impressive for its sense of occasion than for the performance itself. Toscanini made a profound international statement by programming this opera at the time he did, but the performance was musically very uneven. The playing of the NBC Symphony is oftentimes overly tight, and the casting left some to be desired. Herbert Janssen lacks any sense of foreboding or menace in his portrayal of the murderous Don Pizarro, and Sidor Belarsky fails to convey any of the good-natured humor in the character of Rocco.
Above all, what I hear in this performance is a lack of theatre. I'm sure it is no easy task to convey passionate drama in a concert presentation that is being broadcast over the radio, but Beethoven's writing is so descriptive of both action and ideas that more theatricality probably should have resulted from this performance. The only surviving recording of Toscanini conducting a staged performance of this music comes from a 1934 Salzburg production, and of this only a portion of the first act remains. I have not heard this recording, but by all accounts it is remarkable. In comparing the Salzburg performance with the present NBC recording, Harvey Sachs states that "The pacing is generally much broader in the Salzburg version, the singing is better and the playing does not have the occasional tenseness which the NBC betrays; but above all, there is a sustained and monumental dramatic power (no doubt helped by the fact that it comes directly from the theatre) which one experiences with astonishment."
I have no doubt that this is an accurate assessment, although it should not be inferred that the NBC recording is in any way a failure. If Toscanini could not fully live up to his own standards I suppose that is one of the pitfalls of being a performer with such a high ceiling. Even when the details were not ideal, Toscanini always understood the greater meaning of the music he performed, and Fidelio is an opera that courses with ideas and meaning. Toscanini was rightly considered a symbol of liberty during the Second World War, and in this imperfect performance he blessed the public with one of the great symbols of liberty to come from the operatic stage.
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That's it for Day 27!
Check back tomorrow for a mostly American selection of works, with a sprinkling of Austro-German music.
Happy Monday!
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