This is a very valuable recording, the only one of Verdi’s original, French version of what is better known as I vespri Siciliani. It was taped in live performance on May 10, 1969 (and first broadcast by the BBC on February 15, 1970). Its digital remastering is superb: it could pass for a studio performance made in the last decade. The Ballet Music was recorded later (and likely is included here so the opera could be “complete”) and is led by Ashley Lawrence; as Verdi’s ballet music goes, it’s fine stuff. The rest of the performance is conducted by Mario Rossi, whose work I’m mostly familiar with from old RAI Turin recordings of the standard Italian repertoire. Here he shows himself to be not only sensitive to this somewhat odd, sprawling work, but equally sensitive to the fact that he is leading a French opera, and that a certain very French, smoother-than-Italian style is required.
The performance is very good, without being star-studded. Tenor Jean Bonhomme sings Henri (Arrigo) with a voice that defines “French lyric tenor”. The transition to high notes is remarkably easy and he’s careful about Verdi’s dynamic markings. He even gets up to the high-D (a seemingly unnecessary piece of cruelty on Verdi’s part) in the last act with a certain amount of grace, although it’s not a note you’d want to hear first thing in the morning. His attention to the text, particularly in his duets with his father, is admirable. Hélène is sung by Jacqueline Brumaire, a fine lyric soprano with the needed coloratura for the “Bolero” and a musical intelligence that allows her to seem more dramatic than her voice actually is. She never uses chest voice and takes the easier option at the close of her big solo in Act 4, but she also emphasizes just the right phrases to catch our attention at the proper moments.
Ayhan Baran’s rich bass voice is well-used as Procida. In his big, opening solo and his many ensembles he resonates with just the buzz he should; in a cast with larger-voiced principals he might not have been as effective. Finest among the main quartet is baritone Neilson Taylor as Monfort. Verdi wrote his most beautiful and plangent aria for this character (at the start of Act 3), and here, and elsewhere, Taylor (whom I’ve otherwise never heard) sings with such elegance of line, such a lovely sustained pianissimo, that he melts the heart. His more forceful singing is equally expressive. The remainder of the cast is good enough, seeming more at home in French than we might have imagined. As I said at the start of this review, this is a very valuable issue.
