‘Un ballo in maschera’, London 1962

COVENT GARDEN’S MASKED BALL

Covent Garden Opera opened its fifth full season 1952/53 with a new
production of Verdi’s A Masked Ball, perhaps emboldened by the success of
Glyndebourne’s staging at the 1949 Edinburgh Festival, a recording of which is
being remastered for later release by Music Preserved. They chose to perform
it in a new English translation by E J Dent, which restored the original Swedish
setting. Günther Rennert, the then 41-year-old Intendant of Hamburg State
Opera, directed in designs by Alan Barlow, who later that season designed
Norma for Callas’s London debut. The production was to enjoy nine revivals
over the next two decades, being replaced only in 1975, but its opening night
was inauspicious. According to the chronicler Harold Rosenthal, the 31-year-
old John Pritchard’s ‘devitalised’ conducting showed a ‘lack of excitement’;
company tenor Edgar Evans ‘lacked elegance and style for Gustavus’ and the
imported Amelia of Helene Werth was ‘disastrously bad’. Three other
sopranos were drafted in as substitutes, including for the final performance of
that year the recently recruited company artist Joan Sutherland. The following
season’s revival was also ‘beset by trouble’, but introduced Gré Brouwenstijn’s
superior Amelia and Tito Gobbi jumping in as an Italian Renato for an ailing
Jess Walters. In 1956 Argeo Quadri, replacing the scheduled but ill Rudolf
Kempe, injected some Italian warmth to a revival which saw Amy Shuard’s first
Amelia and Graziella Sciutti’s Oscar; but it was the repeat performances in
spring 1957 which brought a change in the production’s fortune, when Shuard
and Sciutti were joined by the new company tenor, 31-year-old Canadian Jon
Vickers, and the young staff conductor Edward Downes took over in the pit.
For those lucky enough to attend one of those performances, as I was aged 12,
this combination revealed Verdi’s opera as a masterwork. The outpouring of
passion in the Act 2 love duet provoked a sustained ovation that surprised
even Downes, and the crescendo in the ensemble which concludes the opera
was spine-tingling. The same principals were reunited in spring 1959 but,
when the opera returned that autumn, it did so in Italian with an international
cast under Kempe. Thereafter, it was to be Un ballo in maschera at Covent
Garden. Decca released the new Musical Director Georg Solti’s Rome
recording in 1962 when he also planned to conduct it in the theatre, but he
had clashed with Vickers over the previous autumn’s Walküre and, when his
attempts to pacify the stubborn tenor failed, Solti tactfully withdrew and was
replaced by Downes, but the rehearsal period was halved. Consequently, the
exuberant teamwork of the 1957 performances in English was lacking,
replaced by a more ‘international’ gathering of forces.

Vickers may not have had a traditionally Italianate sound, but his voice and
diction were uniquely expressive and his portrayal of King Gustav offered
nuances of humour and heroism and an ambiguity that encompassed a
carefree generosity alongside a tragic awareness. No other singer has imbued
the decisive moment at ‘Ah, lo segnato’ before the last act aria with such
wrenching impact. Shuard matched him decibel for decibel; Joan Carlyle made
a charming Oscar; and Regina Resnik was a characterful Arvidson. This Ballo
marked the only Covent Garden appearances of Ettore Bastianini, perhaps the
pre-eminent Italian baritone of his generation, and they show him slightly past
his magnificent best. He was diagnosed with a throat tumour later that year,
and died of cancer in 1967, aged only 45. So, this recording is an important
record and reminder of a singer better remembered in Milan and New York.
Downes, still only 37 at the time, was trusted by Solti and the management as
a reliable musician capable of delivering the goods with limited rehearsal time.
I recall him rehearsing the same opera for its 1969 revival and the military
efficiency with which he ensured discipline and cohesion in the concerted
ensembles, while also being attentive to the needs of the singers. His devotion
to Verdi and to Covent Garden was later rewarded with more ample time on
new productions of Aida, Attila and Stiffelio.

Vickers and Shuard returned for one further memorable Ballo revival in 1966,
when they were joined by Peter Glossop as Ankerstroem, Lucia Popp as Oscar
and Shirley Verrett as Arvidson, under the baton of Istvan Kertesz. There is a
recording of one of those performances in the Music Preserved collection,
which would afford an interesting comparison if and when published.

Nicholas Payne
9 August 2024

Giuseppe Verdi (1813 – 1901)

Un ballo in maschera

Track 1: Act 1 Scene 1

Track 2: Act 1 Scene 2

Track 3: Act 2

Track 4: Act 3 Scene 1

Track 5: Act 3 Scene 2

Track 6: Act 3 Scene 3

This recording was made privately from the auditorium of the Royal Opera House on February 23 1962.

The recording is from the Harewood Collection at Music Preserved.

Remastering by Paul Baily.

• Jon Vickers
  Gustavo III
• Ettore Bastianini
  Count Anckarström
• Amy Shuard
  Amelia
• Regina Resnik
  Ulrica Arvidson
• Joan Carlyle
  Oscar
• Michael Langdon
  Count Horn
• David Kelly
  Count Ribbing
• Victor Godfrey
  Cristiano
• John Kollman
  Minister of Justice
• George Barker
  A Servant of Amelia
• The Covent Garden Opera Chorus
  
• The Covent Garden Opera Orchestra
  
• Edward Downes
  Conductor