On the subject of her studio recordings, opera legend Rosa Ponselle thought that none, except for a few songs, really reflected the way she sang. “If you want to hear what I truly sounded like,” Ponselle told writer John Ardoin, “listen to my radio broadcasts.” Between April 1934 and April 1936 Chesterfield sponsored Ponselle in a regular series of mini-concerts on the air, all conducted by André Kostelanetz. The first ten are reissued here complete for the first time. In some ways, one can understand Ponselle’s attitude. The microphone placement captures her sonority as it projects and congeals in a hall, which was never the case in the very different recording studio (as opposed to broadcast studio) environment. And what a sound it is! There’s virtually no break in the voice. Every register is as evenly regulated as telephone rates used to be. Top and bottom extremes lack nothing in color or richness of expression. Add her musicianship, taste, and effortless, understandable diction, and you’ve got one of the 20th century’s five greatest singers (some might say she WAS the five greatest singers!).
The material is divided between substantial operatic arias Ponselle never recorded in the studio and, let’s face it, sheer dreck. The latter includes “The Big Brown Bear”, “What’s In the Air Today”, “A Dream”, “The Cuckoo Clock”, and other treacle-ridden molden-oldies that were dated before they were composed. More valuable posterity-wise are Ponselle’s elegant, full-voiced “Batti, batti” from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, riveting arias from Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila, Gluck’s Alceste, and Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, and excerpts from Bizet’s Carmen. The latter are more directly sung and less enacted than her controversial Metropolitan Opera broadcast Carmens.
Ward Marston’s admirable transfer work cannot mask the poor quality of some of the original source material, yet the results are light years ahead of the private LP and CD releases from which I first got to know some of these selections. If you’re coming to Rosa Ponselle’s art for the first time, however, start with her early Victor operatic 78s (Romophone). But specialized Ponselle acolytes should check out this release. I eagerly await Volume Two, which will include the last two Ponselle Chesterfield shows and the singer’s remaining, existing broadcasts.
