Cesare Siepi had it all–movie star looks, stage presence, acting ability, and above all a basso cantante voice that made him an international star and a Metropolitan Opera mainstay for almost a quarter of a century, the worthy successor to Ezio Pinza. He was the reigning Don Giovanni of the post-war era, singing the role at the Met, Salzburg, and other houses. Preiser’s Lebendige Vergangenheit collection is the second in its Siepi series and offers recordings made between 1951-1954, the years of his early prime. While we don’t get any of his great Mozart roles here, we do get a good cross-section of his operatic repertoire at that time, predominately Italian, one Russian (an extended monologue in English translation from Rachmaninov’s The Miserly Knight), and six French, including arias from Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable and Gounod’s Faust.
There’s a beautifully-voiced, idiomatic “Vi ravviso” from Bellini’s La Sonnambula, but the high points of the recital are the quartet of Verdi arias from Nabucco, Ernani (a gorgeous “Infelice! E tuo credevi”), Simon Boccanegra (an equally fetching “Il lacerato spirito”), and Don Carlo (a youngish but still affecting Philip II in “Ella giammai m’amo”). In these and other selections Siepi demonstrates that he can brood with the best of them (it comes with the bass territory), and if he doesn’t make your hair stand on end as Boris Christoff does, who can? The transfers, perhaps a trait of the original recordings, render the orchestras as mere backgrounds to the voice, with papery strings and muffled detail. But if the accompaniments sound older than their years, Siepi’s voice is captured well, fully-rounded and lifelike. Presumably, Preiser will continue this series with more Siepi gems, eagerly awaited.
