Corelli (studio recording, 1963, under the already gradual Santini), although he doesn’t quite nip the heel of the soprano’s F, otherwise comes close to the option I suggested above. With a more beautiful and flexible instrument than Del Monaco’s, he dawdles shamelessly on the F (you must imagine it as a romantic, erotically charged theatre moment), then sweeps up into the A-flat and onward—if you find it too much, maybe Chénier is not an opera for you. Here, however, since I’m moving back in time, our F-to-A-flat tradition somewhat surprisingly comes to an end. Richard Tucker’s take on the role is regrettably preserved only on a Metropolitan Opera Record Club abridgment (though one of the better ones, close to complete), made around the time of the mid-’50s production, and also with Cleva conducting. He was no stranger to indulgences, but he attacks the A-flat head-on, at mezzo-forte. From the interwar period, while we have plenty of recordings of the Improvviso and “Come un bel dì,” even a few of “Si, fui soldato,” and the once-famous final duet with Pertile and Margaret Sheridan, we have none that I know of from this Act 2 duet. We have, though, the two complete recordings. Gigli, whom one might well imagine singing a long tenuto with a wide-open “Ah” on the F, in fact commences right on the A-flat, as does the less well-known tenor of the 1930 Columbia set under Molajoli, Luigi Marini. Perhaps this tradition is no older than the end of WW2.

What Kaufmann was attempting, I would gather, was the other “dream” possibility suggested by the score: an attack on A-flat, pp but a genuine half-voice, and then an evenly swelled crescendo that opens up into full voice on the downbeat, with the harmonic change. I listened several times to the moment on both the online versions, and I don’t hear the voice crack. What I hear is a very imperfect messa di voce, started too headily, then crossing the line into forte lumpily, with no continuity in the vibrato. And it’s a shame that we don’t have examples from such artists as Martinelli, Pertile, Lauri-Volpi, or Fleta (all of whom sang the role), to say nothing of Caruso. The last three named, especially, might have really snatched that A-flat out of the air and swelled into a gloriously ringing full voice, or at least settled for us the age of the Del Monaco/Corelli/et al. option.

And Alma: while I agree that Kaufmann is playing it quite self-protectively these days, isn’t his attempt with this a laudable risk? He could have just sung a healthy mezzo-forte, like Tucker. I prefer that sort of risk to that of putting one’s lavish gifts in mortal danger in outsize repertory.

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Here I am once again, having exhausted available time and energy without having gotten to either the glossary or the edifying response from Will Crutchfield to the matter of keyboard function in Don Giovanni, both of which I had promised. They will have to await next post, Aug. 10, when the main subject will be another installment in my Before the First Lesson series. Coming up later: the return of Carmen Jones, and a little Brecht/Weill retrospective.

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