Galina Vishnevskaya was about 50 in the mid-1970s when she recorded these songs and arias, the voice hardly as fresh as it once had been. But she retained her Callas-like intensity and used her still quite serviceable instrument with such feeling and sensitivity to both music and text that reservations are largely swept aside. Those that remain, however, are serious enough to compromise unalloyed pleasure. One is the metallic tinge in her high register when she cuts her big voice loose in fortes, a problem exacerbated by a close-up recording that tends to induce listening fatigue. A second problem lies in the sheer size of her soprano, which in tandem with her passionate interpretations sometimes overwhelms more intimate songs such as Rimsky’s “The rose and the nightingale” and Mussorgsky’s “Lullaby”, and even makes Mussorgsky’s frantic “Hopak” sound overheated. Against this must be set her uncanny ability to make even familiar songs like Tchaikovsky’s “Why?” sound newly minted, sung in a voice that almost defines melancholy. And she uncovers every hidden corner of the emotional subtext of “The rose and the nightingale”, completely overriding any reservations.
I will always find it hard to imagine anyone but a bass, and a deep, black-voiced bass at that, singing Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death, but I have to make an exception for Vishnevskaya, so haunting in the opening “Lullaby” and chilling in “Trepak”, which she sings with recklessly raw abandon, hollowing her tone as Death lulls the drunkard to eternal sleep. With singing of such powerful involvement, occasional intonation flaws and momentary wobbles like the one in “The Field Marshall” are of no consequence. In Lyubasha’s Aria from Act 2 of Rimsky’s The Tsar’s Bride, Vishnevskaya overwhelms us with unbearable sadness in this largely unaccompanied lament–and, demonstrating her versatility, she’s also effective in the upbeat Lei’s Song from Tchaikovsky’s The Snow Maiden. The generously filled disc (77-plus minutes) closes with a moving rendition of Tchaikovsky’s “Again, as before, alone”, which she builds to a powerful climax and ends with a slim thread of fading tone. Rostropovich, both as conductor and pianist, is his wife’s excellent accompanist, especially notable in his beautifully judged, restrained postlude “Why?”, which offers the indifferent answer to the singer’s sad questionings. Too bad EMI’s new remastering doesn’t tame the fierceness of the recording, but it would be a shame to miss singing of this caliber. [2/6/2004]
