Licia Albanese: A Small Tribute to a Legend

Licia Albanese has died. It was inevitable, yet still somehow unexpected, as though she would live forever. I had always been a moderate fan of this lady's, but some years ago I heard a performance I'd previously only heard about, the 1956 Manon Lescaut broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera featuring Albanese & Bjoerling in the leading roles, with Dimitri Mitropolous at the helm. I'm here putting down the notes I made from that experience.

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My jaw still hasn’t recovered from hitting the floor. How crazy was this performance??!! It was completely insane.

Albanese sounded a thousand years old - yet really, really hot . . . juicy, even. And her high notes? They blasted out like velvet bullets. Whenever someone speaks about how to "act with the voice" - Albanese is PRECISELY what they're talking about. The emotive skills of both of these singers, is mind boggling . . . huge. Of course I knew this already from their studio recording, and though I’d always heard of this '56 performance, and white hot” it was, I had no idea . . . no idea.

Both Jussi and Licia give such over the top performances that if they were singing these roles today, some would (sadly) laugh at the hysterical, over-emotive “in your face” performances. Then again, maybe not, when the actual singing is of this high quality. Bjoerling’s performance here tops his studio effort for the fact you get the sense he really is living the role. And his top notes (low notes . . . and all notes in between) are spun out with such vocal glory that not only are his excesses forgivable, they’re necessary . . . welcome and thrilling.

Sadly the orchestra (under my man Mitropolous) often sounds bad, undernourished and under rehearsed, and I have to put it on the conductor as I’ve heard the orchestra from that season sound quite fine. (Nobody shoot me please, I can't believe I'm saying that about a man I consider a god). But D.M. pays wonderful attention to his singers and that pay off was worth its weight in gold.

Albanese’s Sola perduta, abbandonata was one of the wildest versions of any aria I’ve ever heard – certainly of this aria, and I mean by about 1000 percent. Shrieking and sobbing and shouting and sobbing and gasping (and sobbing some more) sometimes, remarkably, in the middle of the notes of a phrase. Who else could do this like her? Sometimes she seems even to do this in the middle of a note – it’s madness . . . pure FILTH! Delicious filth. And the notes . . . Oh. My. God. Simply unbelievable. She hurls them out with such force I believe they were very likely heard on Mars. I had to both laugh and cry as she finished the aria punctuated with sobs as continued repeating the aria’s final lines, sobbing and choking out "non voglio morir . . . no voglio morir" over and over, before more sobs, shrieks as a hysterical Jussi returns, joining in the madness.

The closing few minutes were intense beyond the point of ordinary belief – and why should anything about this performance be ordinary?

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Licia, of course sang many more roles, logging in over 400 performances with the Metropolitan Opera over a long, distinguished singing career. Singing, however, wasn't her only career, as she went on - up until her passing, encouraging, coaching and aiding new, young singers to get established in this most difficult and rewarding art form. Madame Albanese truly was one of a kind, and though she has passed on, her work and legacy will live on. How lucky we were to have her! Rest in peace, dear lady.

Licia through the years.

Moffo's Exquisite Butterfly.

Hands down, this is easily the finest thing I’ve ever seen from Moffo. With almost no prior professional opera experience, Moffo gives a performance that would be hard to equal in every area of this difficult role. Without a bit of Japanese-style make up, the young soprano moves, sings and creates a Cio Cio San that one cannot imagine bettered – at least I couldn’t (imagine it, that is!).

Both Un bel di and Che tua madre are stunning and punch up the dramatic without overdoing it. Speaking of not overdoing it, Moffo never oversings and, in fact, presents Un bel di almost as if whispering a confidence to Suzuki. The end of the love duet is capped beautifully with Moffo’s ecstatic heroine collapsing backwards into Pinkerton’s arms in as romantic a gesture as has been captured on film.

Opera films from the 50's could frequently be laughable (though endearingly so, but here, there are, in fact, a number of incredible directorial choices both innovative and illuminating, and I say this despite having seen more Butterfly’s than a net would hold (Annette who?) At the start of Act II, we see Butterfly lying on her stomach reading or writing something in Japanese characters, looking every bit the bored-out-of-her mind teenager. It lasts only a minute yet this simple action deepens and fleshes out this complex character, adding a slightly comical note while endearing this Cio Cio San to us even more, if such a thing were possible.

The most touching business occurs during Butterfly's all night vigil. At the very beginning of the Humming Chorus, Moff's Butterfly unwraps Pinkerton’s ring and, in a magnificent dumb show worthy of the finest silent screen actresses, Moffo’s face and features both glow and grow with womanly intensity until she is ultimately swept away by all emotion, yet keeps much of it inside and we somehow see and sense this in a performance both infinitely delicate yet powerful. Cio Cio sand then winds her way back to the bridge path on which she walked to her wedding, settles there and remains alone, away from her child and Suzuki. As Puccini's score signals the early morning sounds, the camera reveals Suzuki and Trouble, inside, still asleep on their cushions. Suzuki rises and as the fantastic score begins sweeping all away in joyous intensity, she begins running frantically, pulling up all of the shades in a sort of deconstruction of their home, flooding it with light exposing the myriad flowers still strewn wildly about. Stepping outside she discovers Butterfly, still kneeling on the bridge where she has spent the night alone, waiting. This is pure lump in your throat stuff, folks and Moffo - even not singing a note - is absolutely amazing. Another marvelous touch occurs at the end of the story, as we watch Butterfly crawling, those flowers to welcome Pinkerton caught up in her hair as she dies. Every gesture, every expression came off with a spontaneity from one who believed she was Cio Cio San. I certainly did.

Then there’s Pinkerton. Unfortunately, Renato Cioni, looking rather handsome and not embarrassing himself too terribly as an actor, offers the roughest voiced, most inelegantly phrased Pinkerton I can recall ever encountering. He sort of shrieks his music throughout with his high notes showing a particularly dreadful technique: a flattening out of vibrato creating an ungodly, painful white sound - the opposite of what anyone wants in Puccini, and certainly not right for Pinkerton. At least he looks good and the director keeps him away after the suicide.

Miti Truccato Pace takes the prize as perhaps the best acted and most sympathetic Suzukis to ever have sung the role, at least on screen. Marvelously touching and in perfect harmony with Moffo's heroine.

Afro Poli is a thoughtful, old school Sharpless, older than usual, but richly voiced and pointing up all of his music with actorly attention.

I've read many complaints about the picture and sound quality of this film which, quite frankly I don't understand. This was a live telecast from January 24, 1956 and we’re lucky to even have it around, in ANY quality, but honestly, I thought the transfer used by VAI to be outstanding. Still, people still seem to think it should look and sound like something from Lucasfilms!

Highly recommended.