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Boito's Nerone
Posted by Nils-Göran Olve on August 18, 2025, 7:41 am
I agree with Ralph Moore's views on the work but have not heard the Naxos CDs. Not even the two long scenes included in Toscanini's 1948 La Scala celebration of the composer convinced me. If the sound had been better I might have a different opinion. The best version I heard was the Turin broadcast concert 1975 wirh Prevedi, Ligabue, Baldani, conductor Gavazzeni. This message is to encourage anyone interested who still uses LPs to investigate it on three MRF discs (161-S). It's in stereo and surely taken from a broadcast. There have been later issues but the LP box has the most ambitious documentation I ever saw from a "pirate": libretto with English translation; the libretto for the fifth act which Boito never set; 270 fottnotes to the libretto explaining and sometimes graphically illustrating Boito's erudite terms; articles on Boito and on "the historical Nero"; and a biblography of about 50 scholarly sources. Following the libretto while listening I was so preoccupied with all this that the music did not matter much, which shows up its weaknesses even with good pressings of a good performance. That it's now decades since I last played it reinforces this. Curiosity about the work was strong when it was new. Even my home town Stockholm's Opera presented a lavish and well-cast production in April 1926. There were 25 performances until November 1927, a lot for those days. Ljungberg (later Thorborg) and Wettergren in the leading female roles and the staging as such probably attracted more than the music. But the leading baritone Einar Larson recorded Fanučl's two arias on a 78, so it was obviously considererd an important new opera.
Re: Boito's Nerone
Posted by Göran Forsling on August 28, 2025, 8:23 pm, in reply to "Boito's Nerone"
I once had an LP set with Neronea studio recording on the Hungaroton label set down in the late 1980s with the Hungarian State Opera under Eve Queler with some of the leading Hungarian singers of the time: Ilona Tokody, Lajos Miller, Jozef Gregor and others. I remember playing through it once and then dispose of it. The singing was OK - they had very goood singers in Hungary in those days - but the music left me indifferent. For those interested it is still available as download, and the sound quality on Hungaroton's recordings was generally first class.
Re: Boito's Nerone
Posted by Tully Potter on December 21, 2025, 7:01 pm, in reply to "Boito's Nerone" Edited by board administrator December 21, 2025, 7:38 pm
I was very disappointed by Ralph Moore's review, which basically amounted to: 'I can't be bothered to connect with this rarely-heard work.' In my opinion, Nerone is a masterpiece – though not the most easily assimilable one – and the Cagliari performance is magnificent. The very second track brings one of the great operatic declamatory scenes for a tenor, 'Questo ad un lido fatal', which the great Pertile recorded so superbly. Fairly recently a Telefunken test presssing of Pertile singing it at the end of his recording career turned up, and that too is beautifully sung. Mikheil Sheshaberidze may not have the declamatory imagination and engagement with the text that Pertile habitually demonstrated, but neither has any other tenor since, and the Georgian tenor has a fine voice which he deploys effectively. Conductor Francesco Cilluffo spent a year studying the score and in my opinion he makes something special of it. I don't ask anyone to agree with me but I do ask a reviewer to show more than the rather tired, downbeat attitude evident from Mr Moore's piece.
Re: Boito's Nerone
Posted by Ralph Moore on December 21, 2025, 8:37 pm, in reply to "Re: Boito's Nerone" Edited by board administrator December 26, 2025, 10:23 am
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I was very disappointed by Ralph Moore's review, which basically amounted to: 'I can't be bothered to connect with this rarely-heard work.' In my opinion, Nerone is a masterpiece – though not the most easily assimilable one – and the Cagliari performance is magnificent. The very second track brings one of the great operatic declamatory scenes for a tenor, 'Questo ad un lido fatal', which the great Pertile recorded so superbly. Fairly recently a Telefunken test presssing of Pertile singing it at the end of his recording career turned up, and that too is beautifully sung. Mikheil Sheshaberidze may not have the declamatory imagination and engagement with the text that Pertile habitually demonstrated, but neither has any other tenor since, and the Georgian tenor has a fine voice which he deploys effectively. Conductor Francesco Cilluffo spent a year studying the score and in my opinion he makes something special of it. I don't ask anyone to agree with me but I do ask a reviewer to show more than the rather tired, downbeat attitude evident from Mr Moore's piece.
Mr Potter - I accord you the courtesy title you did not grant me but my editor-in-chief saw fit to amend it - I find your putting words into my mouth in your summary of my stance towards reviewing the Naxos "Nerone" to be remarkably tendentious and indeed insulting. To accuse me essentially of "not listening properly" is highly condescending. I always strive to respond honestly to a work and believe that for all its virtues it is a fundamentally flawed piece which deserves its neglect. My view of it is corroborated by another colleague's assessment of the same performance and I do give some credit to the tenor without finding him especially grateful on the ear. Some of the singing on the distaff side is dire. For balance, there is also yet another review of the DVD which is more positive and now we have your reaction to provide further contrary response; readers may sift the varying judgements, listen to samples and come to their own conclusion. I stand by mine. Please feel free to submit your own review as a "corrective", as here on MusicWeb we do not dictate or control critical opinion.
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