Next in the succession of live London events is the Faust of June 22, 1928. It circulated on a Pearl CD that also included the other famous Covent Garden live recording from the 1920s, the Otello starring Giovanni Zenatello. That is long out of print, and to the best of my recollection, I’d heard none of this Faust till the present release. The roughly 42 minutes of the performance that have been preserved are intriguing on several counts, not all of them having to do with Chaliapin. Some readers may recall my remarks on the first scene as heard in the 1937 Met performance (see “MIA: Faust,” 01/04/19), regarding Richard Crooks’ satisfying finishing off of phrases and episodes within the scene, in collaboration with the Met orchestra under Wilfrid Pelletier. Here the tenor is Joseph Hislop, the conductor Eugene Goossens, and this impression of attention to achieving each expressive task before moving on to the next is even stronger—indeed, I’d be tempted to a detailed comparison of these two live versions of the scene, with their urgent message on how far we’ve come from an operatic aesthetic of dramatic realization to one of just moving along while sounding pretty if possible, were it not too digressive from the immediate subject.

I won’t do that, but I will point to an example or two, in the hope of inducing some close listening. At the very opening of the scene, Hislop and Goossens seem to understand together what has always seemed to me to be obvious in the setting of the lines, but don’t ever hear realized, which is that they set up a subtle drag toward their downbeat destinations to capture the feeling of end-of-the-line weariness. It’s there from the start, on the descending phrases after “Rien!” (“En vain j’interroge/en mon ardente veille“), but becomes really important on the next ascending ones (“La nature/et le Créa-teur” and “Pas une voix ne glisse à mon or-eille“) before evening out numbly for “un mot con-so-la-teur.“^(I) The effect lies in holding back slightly, then accelerating just a tick on the upbeats (“Cre-a-, mon or-“) before landing on the destination downbeats (“-teur,” -eille“) with a suggestion of sforzando. Hislop and Goossens get it, and a monologue of mortal despair is underway. Later, Hislop registers lovely points at “Le ciel palît” or at the contrast of “Rêve d’amour/où de combat,” which Goossens takes care to support. Throughout, their shared sense of rubato and of what needs underlining—to my ear unexaggerated but quite beyond anything we’ll hear at present—keeps us engaged and in suspense as we approach the entrance of the sulphurous bad guy. A similarity between Crooks and Hislop: the habitual use of portamento on downward intervals, sometimes but not always to the benefit of the music. And a difference: whereas Crooks sings open vowels just above the passaggio in a wide position he will soon pay a price for, Hislop keeps the voice gathered. Both instruments are of fine quality and appropriate calibre for the role.