Has there ever been a record critic who has not succumbed to using the “honeyed tone” cliché when describing Beniamino Gigli’s tenor voice? Gigli’s warm, ringing sonority and irrepressible charm gets under your skin within seconds, no matter what he’s singing–from the passionate “Si, fui soldato” from Giordano’s Andrea Chenier and deliciously unstylish “Ombra mai fu” from Handel’s Serse to “cream of corn” like Massenet’s “Elegie”, “La donna e mobile” from Verdi’s Rigoletto, and (what else) “O Solo Mio”. The tenor recorded these and many of this collection’s 1933-35 HMV selections before. However, the ones featured here capture the singer and HMV’s improved engineering in harmonious accord.
Gigli’s justly famous complete 1934 Pagliacci receives its finest, most detailed, and sweetest remastering to date. True, the tenor is prone to enact and throw in an extra sob or two, but what relaxed, effortless vocalism, and internalized sense of style. The other singers are cast from strength. Iva Pacetti is a multi-faceted Nedda, and the Silvio, Leone Paci, produces a well-modulated tone in his clandestine exchanges with Nedda. Mario Basiola’s dark Tonio also is an asset, and he delivers the opening Prologue with panache. The scrawny but spirited La Scala Orchestra and Chorus certainly know what they’re about. If you have no Gigli in your budding opera collection, you might consider this set for starters.
