DG's recording of II Matrimonio segreto under Daniel Barenboim is "a largely enjoyable performance that no lover of opera should miss.
by Paul Henry Lang
------ Re-creating Cimarosa's masterly romp: left, Ryland Davies and Alberto
Rinaldi; below, Julia Jarady and Julia Hamari; below left, conductor Daniel
Barenboim
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON'S RELEASE of II Matrimonio segreto gives us nothing less than the peak achievement of Italian settecento comic opera. It is amazing that such an unquestionable and enjoyable master piece should be so little known. (The poor old Cetra and the much better Angel recordings have not been available for some years.) By the end of the first of this album's six sides anyone with a taste for style, elegance, and charm will be wholly captivated.
Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) was a product of the Loreto, the oldest of the famous Neapolitan conservatories; he was well trained, and besides playing the violin, harpsichord, and organ, he was praised as a good singer. His star rose rapidly, and in no time his popularity outshone that of his most celebrated older colleagues. Even Paisiello had to cede his hitherto unchallenged eminence to the young man whose operas were performed not only all over Italy, but in Dresden, Prague, Vienna, London, and St. Peters burg. When Cimarosa was thrown in jail for republican activities, the most influential royalists and cardinals went to his rescue; in Italy a successful opera composer can do no wrong.
Cimarosa composed II Matrimonio segreto in Vienna, where he was engaged as Salieri's successor at the court (the position Mozart always sought unsuccessfully), and soon after Mozart's death the work was performed to instantaneous acclaim. The emperor, no mean musician, was so carried away that he ordered supper for all participants, and after a rest the entire piece was repeated the same night surely a unique event in the annals of opera. Every one (except the splenetic Berlioz, who hated every thing Italian) admired Matrimonio: Goethe, beguiled, produced it in Weimar; opera composers up to Verdi loved and feasted on it; even the usually reticent and severe Hanslick found it "full of sunshine." The only sour note in this felicity was provided by Mahler, who at the centennial festivities organized in Vienna in 1901 refused to conduct the opera, even though the committee of sponsors consisted of the cream of Vienna's musical and literary intelligentsia.
I suppose a man so tense and full of inner conflicts and pressures could not understand this quintessence of Latin grace, freshness, color, and exuberance of spirit.
The libretto, suggested by one of Hogarth's famous series of pictures, came from a play by the elder Col man and Garrick entitled The Clandestine Marriage, produced in London in 1766. After going through several hands, it landed in those of Giovanni Bertati, the author of the Don Giovanni set by Gazzaniga that immediately preceded Mozart's opera by the same title and that both Da Ponte and his composer studied closely. It deals with the always popular story of the old guardian or father whose sweet young charge refuses to marry her wealthy but elderly suitor. To this was added the necessary subplot permitting the permutation of amorous intrigues; in the end the couples are of course sorted out to general satisfaction.
Bertati, an experienced librettist well above the average prevailing in his day, made a spirited piece out of the old story, and Cimarosa set it with classically balanced economy. The composer establishes immediate rapport with his audience, because what ever he does is always graceful, witty, and creative, the charming melodies flow in abundance, and there is a delightful tinge of sly irony. Cimarosa knew the theater as few have known it, he was a superbly gifted lyricist, and his orchestra is full of verve. Only Mozart and Rossini composed such crackling and animated ensembles and finales.
Now we must touch upon the unavoidable com parison with Mozart; it is often made, and of course to the detriment of the Italian. But such comparisons are based on the wrong premise, for these two com posers were no rivals-they created in different veins. Mozart, though saturated with Italian elements, was not an Italian composer like Hasse; the Italians knew the difference, and while he was ad mired he never became really popular in Italy. The Italian buffa composer did not take very seriously the reality of his characters or seek their inner truth as Mozart did-no Italian could create a dramatic figure like the Countess in Figaro-because they wanted to romp, entertain, and propagate cloudless merriment.
Thus the two composers' aims were quite different, and each achieved them according to his lights and temperament. Both used the prevailing classical idiom to perfection, and we cannot fault Cimarosa if he could not turn cliches from the public domain into revelations, for only Mozart could do that. But he used them with captivating elegance, volatile and cohesive at the same time. As Hanslick so well said:
"II Matrimonio segreto shows a fabulously light but masterfully schooled hand led by discriminating taste." The new performance, though not without some flaws, is excellent. Daniel Barenboim, not in frequently guilty of romantic effusiveness, this time shows a most intelligent, understanding, and sophisticated approach as well as a firm command of his forces, both stylistically and technically. He presents us with an opera do camera, intimate, delicate, and yet solid. There is an impressively just balance between stage and pit, the English Chamber Orchestra is superb, the tempos are brisk, the ensembles roll along with precision, the accompanied recitatives are flexible, and there are none of those phony allar gandos at the end of sections or arias. Even the harpsichordist, who sticks to his duties without unnecessary flourishes, ends his cadences crisply, but he is somewhat muffled by the sound engineers. Though the latter commendably assist Barenboim in his endeavor to maintain an intimate atmosphere, the closely placed microphones, appropriate most of the time, cause sudden high notes to erupt shrilly; the marvelous finales are also a little noisy when the sonic barometer rises.
All three of the women-sopranos Julia Varady and Arleen Auger and mezzo Julia Hamari-sing well, with warmth and vivaciousness, though with less than ideal enunciation, and in the fast patter of the parlandos their attempt to be too pointed results in breathless flutter. The outstanding members of the cast are tenor Ryland Davies, a sensitive bel canto artist, and especially Alberto Rinaldi, who uses his attractive bass voice impeccably, with a fine sense for articulation and pace, and engagingly communicates his own relish for the part. Both he and Davies enunciate with remarkable clarity.
Regrettably, the one unsatisfactory member of the cast is the most famous of them, Dietrich Fischer Dieskau. His voice is not suited for his part, nor does it show to advantage even in the more sustained pas sages. Fischer-Dieskau does not really understand Italian buffo singing (few, if any, German Lieder singers do), overdoes the part by attempting to be very funny as he jumps from barely audible mum bled asides to sudden outbursts, and cannot master the parlando; huffing and puffing, he spits out the notes as though they tasted bad.
Nevertheless, we still have an absolutely delectable work in a largely enjoyable performance that no lover of opera should miss.
CIMAROSA: II matrimonio segreto.
Ehsettd Ryland Davies (t) Julia Varady (s) Paolino Carolina Arleen Auger (s) Geronimo Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b) Fidalma Julia Haman (ms) Count Robinson Aberto Rmaldr (bs) Richard Amner, harpsichord; English Chamber Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim, cond. [Hans Weber and Gunther Breest, prod.)
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 2709 069, $23.94 (three discs, manual sequence).
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(High Fidelity, Nov. 1977)
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