This well-filled two-disc compilation of the art of Teresa Berganza features a singer who yields nothing to the current crop of star mezzos. Berganza’s beautiful voice sailed through coloratura with aplomb, had a remarkably even range, and above all, possessed extraordinary warmth and charm, the latter quality never cloying. She was a wonderful Mozart/Rossini singer, so the good news is that this set includes six opera arias by the pair along with Mozart’s concert aria “Ch’io mi scordi di te?…Non temere”. The bad news is that all of them were included in Decca’s Berganza release in its “The Singers” series. (My review can be accessed by typing Q4269 in Search Reviews). So again we’re faced with the dizzying mix ‘n match recycling frenzy regularly indulged in by the major labels.
Still, if you have The Singers release, you’ll also need this one since it adds almost two hours of great singing to those duplications. Handel and Gluck are here, including a drop-dead gorgeous “Che puro ciel” from Orfeo and even a creditable “Divinités du Styx” from Alceste, a favorite of dramatic sopranos. Berganza’s a sexy Carmen in the “Habañera” and in “Près des ramparts de Seville”, with Placido Domingo. And she’s memorably touching in the plaintive “Medea o Medea…Solo un pianto” from Cherubini’s Medea.
She really turns on the charm in the disc of Spanish and Italian songs, as in a group of four by Alessandro Scarlatti, where she shows off her ravishing pianissimos. The usual suspects are present–Granados, Turina, Falla–and there are two delightful sets of Basque songs by Berganza’s piano accompanist, Felix Lavilla, and by Jesús Arámbarri. Recordings date from 1959 to 1962, with some songs from 1977, but Decca claims not to know the dates or venues of half the remaining tracks of the second disc. Berganza gets fine support from the various orchestras and conductors, and Lavilla’s piano accompaniments reflect their long, successful partnership.
The early recordings are better sounding, although the digital remastering doesn’t match the warmth and presence of the original LPs. The later DG-derived recordings reflect the mid-1970s decline in engineering, and the second disc includes patches of distortion, especially damaging to the two zarzuela arias. If you’re a Berganza fan you’ll want this, even if you have some duplications; if you don’t know her singing, you need this.
