The Art of Alfredo Kraus: The Recital Discs

Arias from Rigoletto, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Faust, The Snow Maiden, Carmen, L'Arlesiana, La Gioconda, Die Zauberflöte, Lucia di Lammermoor, Aida
Orchestra Sinfonica di Madrid
Mario Cordone, conductor
Bongiovanni (distributed by Qualiton Imports) GB 507-2

Arias from La traviata, Don Giovanni, Tosca, Guglielmo Tell, Manon, Il trovatore, Martha, Manon, Cavalleria rusticana, Werther
Orchestra Sinfonica di Madrid
Franco Patanè, conductor
Bongiovanni GB 513-2

Arias from Fedora, Hérodiade, La bohème, Roméo et Juliette, Luisa Miller, La fille du régiment, Mefistofele, Werther, Andrea Chénier, Mignon, Faust, Il pirata
Orchestra "Manuel de Falla"
Nicola Rescigno, conductor
Bongiovanni GB 534-2

Arias from La fille du régiment, Pagliacci, Mignon, Madama Butterfly, Werther, Il trovatore, Manon Lescaut, Lakmé, Turandot, Le roi d'Ys, Faust
Orchestra "Manuel de Falla"
Nicola Rescigno, conductor
Bongiovanni GB 535-2

Arias from Le roi d'Ys, Il pirata, Mignon, Linda di Chamounix, Les pêcheurs de perles, La fanciulla del West, Turandot, Mefistofele, Manon Lescaut, L'Africaine, Ali Baba
Orchestra "Manuel de Falla"
Nicola Rescigno, conductor
Bongiovanni GB 536-2

THESE five discs, which rank among the most important documents of Alfredo Kraus's career, claim an honored place among the great lyric-tenor recordings, worthy of comparison with the legendary records of Alessandro Bonci, Tito Schipa, Beniamino Gigli, and Ferruccio Tagliavini. Kraus's versions of arias from Traviata, Rigoletto, Lucia, Manon, and Faust set standards that subsequent tenors have not surpassed.

These performances were originally recorded by Carillon, the company Kraus founded to distribute the sound track of Gayarre, the 1959 film in which he portrayed the great nineteenth-century Spanish tenor Julián Gayarre. The exact dates of the recordings (all now reissued on CDs) are unknown. The first two collections apparently date from the early 1960s. Some selections appeared in the United States on various LP issues licensed by the Montilla label. Two decades later they gained wider circulation in superb Carillon LP pressings, distributed by Bongiovanni. At the same time, Carillon—again through Bongiovanni—reissued the soundtrack recordings from Gayarre (GB 501-2). Bongiovanni subsequently issued the first two aria recitals on compact disc as well as a collection from the Gayarre film (GB 535-2), which includes superb accounts of "Bianca al par" from Les Huguenots, "La donna è mobile," "A te, o cara," and "Spirto gentil." Several years later, Bongiovanni followed up those CD reissues with three more discs featuring new material recorded in the 1980s under Nicola Rescigno but never before released on LP or CD.

The first two CDs capture Kraus in peak vocal form. The voice sounds fresh and vital, the vibrato tautly focused, the top effortlessly produced right up to high D and—in an aria from William Tell—even to high E-flat. The voice moves with unfailing steadiness from a firm middle range up to the keenly strung high notes. At the lower end the tone sometimes lacks the firmness heard in the later recordings. There Kraus's voice displays a range of color absent in the earlier discs, although the vibrato has loosened. All the recordings show the hallmarks of Kraus's singing: superb diction, smooth legato, and immaculate line. Kraus disdained exaggerated portamenti. He was a bel canto stylist who attacked notes without sliding up to the pitch and articulated embellishments cleanly without resorting to aspiration.

Limitations? Like every great tenor, Kraus was not a flawless singer. He did not command the liquid tone of a Gigli or the graceful, pliant phrasing of a Schipa. That said, Gigli lacked the unfailing taste that characterized Kraus's masterful singing, and Schipa never commanded the easy upper extension Kraus retained to the end of his career. As Rodolfo Celletti has pointed out, Kraus sang with his head, not his heart. ¹ Studied rather than spontaneous, Kraus won audiences through his artistic integrity more than through vocal charisma.

The opening selection on the first CD—a stunning performance of the...