We are especially fortunate in our two Cherubinos—at the Met, Jarmila Novotnà, and in San Francisco, Risë Stevens. The former, who had debuted in Prague at age 19 as Violetta, whose beautiful voice and aristocratic feminine glamor had made her an operetta and film star, and who had quickly won the affections of Met audiences, is as usual in these seasons delicious, her voice running freely through the “Non so più” and her slow, tender treatment of “Voi che sapete” somehow conveying through voice alone a dazed adolescent state. Stevens, a mezzo in youthful, soprano-y condition that survived surprisingly well a dozen or so years of the Carmens and Dalilas won for her by her well-favored presence and, for much of that span, an absence of high-powered competition, sings a pleasurable, languishing “Voi che sapete.”

I have written of Pinza in earlier postings on Faust, Don Giovanni, Boris Godunov, and Louise, and am not sure that his Figaro isn’t the best of all these, the one most perfectly served by the sheer sonority and color of his tone, his alacrity of attack, his natural high spirits, and of course his relish of the sounds and inflections of his native tongue. Even in the middle acts, wherein none of his arias is to be found, he dominates the scene with every utterance. And for accomplices in setting an Italian tone, he has formidable support in Baccaloni (Bartolo) and Alessio de Paolis (Basilio). Baccaloni is already settled into Fat Rascal mode, setting up offstage gabbling with Marcellina before his first entrance, chortling his way through most moments, however brief, that threaten to be otherwise silent, and ending “La vendetta” with shameless cries of “HA–vin-to sarà!” Still: it is hard to resist such a heartfelt appeal to our low-comedy receptors, and everything is sung in that roomy, large but light bass that has not yet started to loosen. De Paolis, to whom I also gave attention in the Boris article, is a chuckler, too—a nasty one. He is the most dangerous-sounding Basilio I’ve heard, his voice still hale enough to do damage, and every line a twist of the knife. The Marcellina of this performance is the mezzo Irra Petina. She was a very valuable artist to the Met throughout the ’40s, but this is only a qualified success, caught between “characterizing” and actually centering the tone.

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A dozen years on, in march of 1952, we still find a marked Italianate tone to the Met’s Nozze di Figaro. Baccaloni and de Paolis are still with us, showing light wear but keeping it all essentially together, and we have Italian voices of quality as both Figaro and the Count. We also have Fritz Reiner, a major conductor, who leads a crisp, coherent performance. And I don’t say it’s anything less than excellent—the Met orchestra, grumblings notwithstanding, to my ear always responded well to him. What I would say, though, by way of comparison to Panizza’s reading, is that Reiner’s sounds more “conducted.” It’s texture is more “symphonic,” and much too taut to be New Viennese; it inclines more toward the Figaros of Karl Böhm or Erich Leinsdorf (of whom more in a moment), though better than either. So some of the unbuttoned feel, of a natural unfolding of the piece (though Panizza, of course, was indeed conducting, and quite in control) is no longer there. The handing-down of an Italian ear, strong at the Met from Toscanini to Serafin to Panizza, had weakened, and the Italian contingent in the orchestra had to have contracted somewhat as well.

Cesare Siepi, owner of what remains, seventy years down the road, the finest Italian bass voice after Pinza’s, is the Figaro, in the full plenitude of his plush young basso cantante sound and already in possession of his apparently easy expertise with Mozart. If one could find any objection to his singing of this character, it would be that he can’t help sounding patrician. I’ve never found that hard to overlook, and it has been unalloyed pleasure to once again hear him roll through the part under live circumstances. (He’s on the Kleiber studio recording, too.) One hears immediately, in the opening dialogue with Susanna and the accompanied recit before “Se vuol ballare,” how much margin he’s working with for the shadings he brings to the text. All three arias are fine—”Non piú andrai” especially so—and that great fourth act moment at “Tutto è tranquillo e placido” memorable. The Count is Giuseppe Valdengo, his voice showing all the lyrical warmth—a quality not unlike Giuseppe Taddei’s, but in a slightly lesser format—of his brief international prime. (He’d lost some years to the war, and in the ’50s his range contracted enough to shorten the career.) His reputation now rests largely on the splendid work he did in big Verdi roles on the Toscanini broadcasts, but in truth his voice was not that of a dramatic baritone. Here he is at a comfortable weight, and is the unusual singer of this part to suggest a still-young Count of Latin-lover appeal. He’s sometimes too casual with shaping phrases or finishing off words, but he and Siepi give us a very easy-on-the-ear pair of male principals.