LA TRAVIATA – VERDI
Presented on May 23, 25, 29, Jun 8 at the Gaiety Theatre Dublin as part of the Dublin Grand Opera Society’s Spring Season
Margherita Rinaldi – Violetta
Luciano Pavarotti – Alfredo
Giuseppe Taddei / Cesare Bardelli[Jun 8] – Giorgio
Mary Sheridan – Flora
Brendan Cavanagh – Gastone
Alberto Oro – Baron
Ernesto Vezzosi – Marchese
Loris Gambelli – Dr Grenvil
Monica Condron – Annina
Ferdinando Guarnieri – Conductor
Enrico Frigerio – Producer
Listen to this production here:
This recording appears to have been made at the final performance of the series: 8th June, at which Cesare Bardelli sings the role of Giorgio Germont
It has now been established that two separate and distinct recordings have survived of this 1964 production of “La Traviata”; but for many years, only a single recorded version was known to exist – predictably enough a radio broadcast of what turned out to be the final performance of the series featuring Cesare Bardelli as Giorgio Germont. The story of how this came about – and how the second recording emerged – is worth recording in full.
Wind the clock back to Christmas 1963 when plans were bring settled for the upcoming Tenth Festival of Italian Opera which was scheduled to take place in Dublin during late spring of the following year: continuing the tradition for superstar billing which had been established that Spring by Giuseppe di Stefano in Tosca, rumours began to circulate that Verdi’s “Otello” was being planned to open the spring 1964 season with Mario del Monaco as the moor, Giuseppe Taddei as Iago and Virginia Zeani as Desdemona; plans for this were proceeding well until del Monaco was involved in a motoring accident in December which precluded his participation and the plans had to be revised.
Del Monaco’s replacement – Pier Miranda Ferraro – wasn’t available for the original dates so “Traviata” was promoted to the headline event and Taddei promoted to fill the full-page superstar billing slot in the season brochure. The only problem was that prior commitments meant that he could now only deliver the first three out of a scheduled four performances; but his appearances as Giorgio Germont were nevertheless hotly anticipated.
Naturally there were plans for a radio broadcast: customarily this would be the 3rd or 4th performance of the run with the earlier ones used by the Radio Eireann engineers to test acoustical balance, etc. Representations were made to the chief engineer (whose wife, as luck would have it, sang in the chorus) and his assistant (who had grown up singing in the chorus) to emphasise the vital importance of capturing the DGOS debut of such an important Italian baritone for posterity. Needless to say, when the recording was eventually broadcast, RE had chosen the fourth performance – with Cesare Bardelli as Germont pere – for apparent “technical reasons”; but none of that mattered: it wasn’t Taddei on the broadcast and the opportunity for a recording of the great baritone singing in Dublin had apparently been lost forever.
Wind forwards 52 years to the 2016 and another recording of the 1964 Dublin “Traviata” emerges online – this time with Giuseppe Taddei as Germont – it is being circulated amongst enthusiasts on the internet. Initially those “in-the-know” in Dublin were dismissive of such a claim. There was no question that the original radio broadcast hadn’t taken place with that cast; but there was also no doubt that this new tape sounded different – and remarkably like Taddei; so the only question that then remained was how this mysterious recording could have come about in the first place.
Margherita Rinaldi was the Violetta of those performances; dim recollections of her husband (the conductor Valentino Barcellesi, who accompanied her on this visit to Dublin) seemed to suggest that he had brought with him an early production model of the portable Philips Compact Cassette machine, such as became both popular and widespread during the 1970s and 1980s, but were still virtually unknown in 1964. The recording of Act 1 ends abruptly and inopportunely just before Rinaldi’s climactic high note – suggesting that after just over 31 minutes of recording a standard C60 had reached its end.
Thus, after half a century, we now have a second in-house recording made on 25th May 1964 at the second performance of the series featuring Giuseppe Taddei as Giorgio Germont and preserving his Dublin appearance for ever! Attempts were made (by Ugo Benelli, amongst others) to conclusively verify the provenance of this new recording, but all that could be established was that the Philips machine had been in Dublin and that some tapes had survived.
La Traviata, 25th May 1964, in-house recording:
This recording appears to have been made at the second performance of the series: 25th May, at which Giuseppe Taddei sings the role of Giorgio Germont (conclusion of “Sempre Libera” in Act 1 is missing – see above)
Luciano Pavarotti who would be heard as Rodolfo (“Boheme”) and Alfredo (“Traviata”). And the elder Germont in that “Traviata” was the great Giuseppe Taddei, born in Genoa in 1916 and whose repertoire by now was said to number more than seventy operas. A recording star, he was equally at home in Mozart as well as in Verdi and was a most versatile artist. Peter McBrien felt that this “Traviata” was one of the greatest Dublin had seen with wonderful performances by Taddei, Rinaldi and the young Pavarotti. He regarded Taddei as a supreme actor-singer whose artistry shone throughout. ‘I didn’t wish to hear a second act better sung. Margherita Rinaldi seemed to be inspired by his presence and her Violetta is still vivid in my mind. As for Pavarotti, he showed outstanding promise; his voice was easy-flowing and flexible and the higher up he went the better he sounded. In my view there was no mistaking his star quality.’ Mary Sheridan had a part in the opera and thought that Rinaldi scored a personal triumph as Violetta and she was also deeply impressed by Giuseppe Taddei’s performance. She was delighted to be part of such a successful production and to hear Rinaldi’s coloratura meet every demand of Verdi’s music. ‘The whole thing was so exciting that I remember almost every scene in the opera to this day.’ Paddy Ring sang Roderigo in “Otello” and one afternoon was going upstairs in the back of the Gaiety to get his costume when he heard a tenor warming up in his dressing room. ‘I think it was number two dressing room which was shared by the principal tenor. I stopped in my tracks and listened to the voice. Whoever it was, was doing scales and singing top Bs and Cs effortlessly, but it was the sheer quality of the voice that attracted me. There was no question of technique or placing of the voice, it was just happening in the most natural way. It was a glorious sound in every way. As I listened, Mary Sheridan came by and I asked her his name. She looked surprised and remarked, “That’s Luciano Pavarotti.” When I heard him sing Alfredo and Rodolfo that season he confirmed my very first impressions on the stairway. True, he was no actor but the way he projected his voice and the warmth he brought to his singing bowled over a young tenor like myself.’
(Extracted from “Love and Music: The Glorious History of the Dublin Grand Opera Society” by Gus Smith, 1998)
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