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Reviewed by:
  • Norma
  • Nicholas E. Limansky (bio)
Norma. Vincenzo Bellini

There was a time, not too long ago, when the very name of Bellini's Norma made sopranos quake and listeners salivate. Now, however, it seems as if it is just another opera. So what happened? My thought is that this once revered work has fallen victim to the same situation that afflicts the classical recording industry—oversaturation.

The first complete recording of Norma did not appear until 1936, when the Italian firm Cetra recorded the work with the then-famous dramatic soprano Gina Cigna and the conductor Vittorio Gui. The next recording did not appear until 1954—the first Callas/Serafin Norma released on Angel, the recording that began to alter modern perceptions about Bellini's work. In 1955 you had two choices if you [End Page 551] wanted to hear this opera complete on records. Today you can find shelves of recordings of the work (both live and studio) at Tower Records and on the Internet.

To be fair, there are good and bad points about this. On one hand it is good that Norma, once an elusive revival piece, is now much more accessible. On the other hand, because of many ill-advised performances, the title role has lost much of its mystery and allure. Once considered the pinnacle of operatic achievement and dared by only the most consummate of sopranos, Norma is now sung by just about anyone who can manage the notes. Almost every Fach of the female voice is represented: dramatic sopranos, spinto sopranos, heavy "coloratura" sopranos, even mezzo-sopranos. Although one might initially applaud such daring, many singers should have left well enough alone. That being said, it remains a fact that, as with any challenging role, only a handful of artists' voices fit Norma in all the right places. During the 1960s the list was quite short, but it did include Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, Montserrat Caballé, and the heroine of this set, Leyla Gencer.

Most readers of The Opera Quarterly are familiar with the career, if not the voice, of this feisty Turkish soprano. Born in Istanbul in 1928, the daughter of a Catholic mother and a Muslim father, she studied with the Italian soprano Giannina Arangi-Lombardi and the baritone Apollo Granforte. She made her debut in Turkey in 1950 as Santuzza and quickly established herself as a reliable, passionate singer. By the late 1950s she was specializing in the bel canto repertory, and by the end of her stage career (the late 1970s) Gencer had become regarded as the premier Donizetti interpreter. Although she was shamefully neglected by commercial recording companies, her talent was important enough that she took part in many of the most important Italian ottocento operatic revivals during the twentieth century.

A dynamic performer, Gencer knew what audiences liked. She was captured in so many pirated live performances in the 1950s and 1960s that she was nicknamed "the Queen of the Pirates." She was, in fact, a perfect singer for the then burgeoning industry of pirated opera recordings. For buyers her uninhibited dramaticism was, aurally, extremely satisfying, and this did much to spread her popularity. Not surprisingly, Gencer's pirate catalogue contains some of the most vivid performances ever captured by a microphone. Because of copyright expirations and changes, most of these once coveted recordings are easily available today: you can go into almost any Tower Records store and find at least twenty Gencer recordings.

Gencer was a very clever singer. By that I mean that once she realized her true artistic temperament lay with the more dramatic roles within the bel canto realm, she refashioned her essentially lyric-coloratura instrument into a dramatic coloratura. Pedagogically, this is a dangerous thing to do. In Gencer's case she was lucky, and it worked. [End Page 552]

There was, of course, a price to be paid. Because of the extra pressure she put on her instrument, the registers segregated, and an inevitable coarseness often invaded her singing. Not deterred, Gencer simply incorporated such deficiencies into her interpretations. Although she had a serviceable high E-flat, usually she did not venture above high D. (In Norma it was...

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