Three gems of 19th-century Romantic music played by the Smetana Trio The Smetana Trio's new album presents three compositions that capture the diverse forms of 19th-century Romantic chamber music. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy wrote his Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66, during his artistic maturity. It combines the dramatic energy of the outer movements with the tender lyricism and delicate poetic character of the central movements. Alongside the virtuosic piano part, the work stands out for it's finely balanced dialogue among the three instruments and it's refined motivic development. The second composition on the album is Zdenek Fibich's early Piano Trio in F minor, the work of a young composer inspired by the legacy of Robert Schumann. It combines the ardour of Romanticism and lyrical warmth with a carefully conceived formal design and a sensitive interplay between the piano and the strings. The album concludes with the Fantasy Pieces by Walter Rabl, a composer who today remains on the fringes of the concert repertoire. This cycle of brief character pieces delights listeners with it's melodic freshness, tender lyricism, and cultivated, Brahmsian sound. In all three works, the Smetana Trio reaffirms it's exceptional standing among Czech chamber ensembles. Jitka Cechova, Marketa Janouskova, and Jan Palenícek offer an interpretation combining technical mastery, stylistic refinement, and profound comprehension of the Romantic musical style.
Smetana's Libuse in an extraordinary performance by Jakub Hrusa and the Czech Philharmonic. This new recording of Smetana's Libuse captures one of the highpoints of the Year of Czech Music 2024, which brought together the Czech Philharmonic, the Prague Philharmonic Choir, and leading Czech vocal soloists under the baton of Jakub Hrusa. This festive opera, created for the opening of the National Theatre in Prague, transcends it's role as a historical tableau and a symbol of national identity. In it, Smetana tells a story of the search for a just order, the responsibilities of a ruler, and the ability to overcome personal disputes for the good of society as a whole, values that have lost none of their relevance. Soprano Katerina Knežíkova appears in the title role, combining the regal dignity of Princess Libuse with the lyrical tenderness and human dimension of this legendary figure. Conductor Jakub Hrusa reveals not only the monumental and ceremonial dimension of Smetana's score, but also it's wealth of colour, the transparency of it's more intimate passages, and the subtle shaping of psychological tension. Under his leadership, the Czech Philharmonic creates a dynamic arc that moves from conflict and reconciliation to Libuse's final prophecy - a grand vision of Czech history in which the past opens a path to the future. The recording was made in May and June 2024 at concerts of the Prague Spring International Music Festival and during preparations for the Smetana Litomysl Festival, as part of the Smetana200 project.
Debut album of the outstanding Czech violinist Jan Mracek The debut album of Jan Mracek, concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic, introduces one of the leading Czech violinists of his generation in repertoire that combines virtuosity, lyricism, and youthful energy. The album's centrepiece is Josef Suk's Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 24, one of the crowning achievements of the Czech violin repertoire, reflecting the composer on the threshold of his mature creative period. The work combines a solo part of exceptional technical difficulty with rich orchestral colours and characteristic melodic invention. Accompanying Jan Mracek are the Czech Philharmonic under Sir John Eliot Gardiner, a world-famous conductor with a deep affinity for Czech music. Suk's Fantasy is paired with two early Romantic works with the soloist accompanied by the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. Franz Schubert's enchanting Rondo in A major for Violin and Strings blends melodic grace, elegance, and immediacy of expression. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy wrote his Concerto in D minor for Violin and Chamber Orchestra at the beginning of his career at just 13 years of age. The work nonetheless exhibits noteworthy compositional assurance, a keen sense of form, and confident handling of the solo part. In all three compositions, Jan Mracek shows himself to be a performer combining technical brilliance with musical intelligence, stylistic sensitivity, and natural musicianship, and he is able to capture the individual character of each work.
Newly remastered: the legendary first complete recording of Dvorak's Rusalka / The first complete Czech studio recording of Rusalka (1952), presented here in it's original remastered mono version, returns with a sensitive revival of it's authentic sound, reaffirming it's special place in the history of Czech operatic discography. Soprano Ludmila Cervinkova shines in the title role in an interpretation combining lyrical tenderness with dramatic urgency, an achievement that remains to this day among the pinnacles of Czech operatic artistry. Alongside her are legends of the golden generation of the Opera of the Prague National Theatre - Beno Blachut bringing ardent passion to the part of the Prince, Eduard Haken in a deeply moving portrayal of the Water Goblin, Marie Podvalova as the majestic Foreign Princess, and Marta Krasova evocatively portraying the Witch. Jaroslav Krombholc leads the Prague National Theatre Orchestra with exceptional sensitivity to Antonin Dvorak's melodicism, colour, and the dramatic sweep of the work, creating an interpretation that unites fairytale poetry with powerful dramatic intensity. With it's famous aria 'Song to the Moon', Rusalka is today one of the most frequently performed Czech operas around the world, and this historical recording remains a treasure, documenting Czech operatic artistry of the 20th century.
Astor Piazzolla: Cafe 1930 - Daniel Matejca, Martin Sulc
Supraphon
CD · 1 disc
$45.99Oct 02, 2026
Piazzolla in the hands of a new generation - with passion, freedom, and virtuosity. The fourth Supraphon album by the 21-year-old performer Daniel Matejca brings a change of genre. Following virtuosic sonatas by Eugene Ysaÿe (2023), a chamber music album with pianist Jan Schulmeister (Suk, Martinu, Fiser, 2025), and exciting concertos by Shostakovich and Prokofiev with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and Tomas Netopil (2025), the focus now turns to tango nuevo, inseparably associated with astor Piazzolla. Besides the Argentine tango, his language as a composer reflects not only the contemporary classical music he studied in Paris under Nadia Boulanger, but also jazz and especially the music of Bach, which Piazzolla played on the bandoneon to the surprise of many people. On a map, Piazzolla would lie along an imaginary axis between Buenos Aires, Paris, and New York. It may well have been this breadth of inspiration that captivated Daniel Matejca, who plays piano and percussion as well as violin (not to mention the wide range of genres he performs) and the exceptional accordion player Martin sulc, whose palette of colours ranges from intimacy to an almost orchestra fullness at times. Their flawless ensemble is a given; what is more striking is the degree of freedom and expressivity they bring to it. Both suites (Suite del angel, Histoire du Tango) contain clearly audible echoes of Piazzolla's studies in Paris. Of course, the album could not omit Ave Maria, Oblivion, Escualo, and Finale, irresistible works that alone would be enough to secure Piazzolla's immortality. This recording by two young musicians captivated by the Argentine legend may well contribute to that lasting legacy.
Over two evenings in 1983 (February 4th and November 7th) in the concert hall of Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, the world-famous pianist Ivan Moravec spellbound the audience with his majestic performance. This master of the piano’s precision marries cultivated tone and widely differentiated articulation, augmented by deep musical élan. Each tone has absolute logic within the order of the composition he interprets, be it Beethoven’s expansive Sonata in D major, “Pastoral”, or the seemingly smaller pieces by Brahms and Chopin. And it is precisely in the latter that Ivan Moravec excels as a master of tiny area, which he wondrously chases in stylistic terms and renders ebulliently. The live recording breathes in the airy atmosphere of the concert hall, one that can hardly be evoked in studio albums. The recording clearly shows that the world of Beethoven’s, Chopin’s and Brahms’s piano works is close to the essence of Moravec’s being.
Josef Suk: Asrael / Mackerras, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Supraphon
CD · 1 disc
$31.99Jan 28, 2011
Josef Suk began writing the funeral symphony Asrael to commemorate his teacher and father-in-law Antonín Dvořák. During the course of work, however, Fate dealt him another crushing blow: Asrael, the Angel of Death, took away Suk’s wife and Dvořák’s daughter Otilie. The symphony is a story of a suffering whose strength seems simply unendurable, yet also a story of its overcoming, seeking solace and hope. Sir Charles Mackerras’s live recording of Asrael originated on a Good Friday, 6 April 2007, one hundred years after the symphony’s premiere. The young Australian conductor had first heard about Asrael some sixty years previously from Suk’s close friend, Václav Talich. In later years, Mackerras confessed that he perceived the work in a completely different light after his daughter had died. Sir Charles conducted Suk’s Asrael during one of his last performances with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. It is also his last previously unreleased recording with this orchestra.
Zelenka: Melodrama De Sancto Wenceslad / Stryncl, Musica Florea
Supraphon
CD · 2 discs
$47.99Jan 29, 2013
Here's a case where the music so completely and satisfyingly transcends the texts, that we can thoroughly enjoy the proceedings without really having to know what all the singing and playing is about. The texts--the singing is in Latin--are in the most serious, heavily ornate, flowery Baroque poetic style, and are concerned with religious devoutness and allegorical representations of traits such as "Fortitude", "Suspicion", "Dignity", "Faith", and "Godliness". Even the work's title, which translates "Under the olive tree of peace and the palm tree of virtue the Crown of Bohemia splendidly shines before the whole world", tells you something of the solemnity and high importance of the occasion for which it was written: the 1723 coronation ceremony in Prague of Emperor Charles VI and his wife Elisabeth Christine. Zelenka's music, which amounts to a kind of oratorio-type structure--orchestral introductions and interludes, choruses, arias, and various other solo/choral combinations--actually was designed to accompany a dramatic presentation that also included dances and parts for actors. Fortunately for us today, we can sit back and just listen to some of the more delightful--sometimes breathtakingly powerful--music from this period that didn't come from the pen of Bach or Handel. Even Zelenka was impressed enough with some of the work's movements that he reused them in adapted form the following year for sections of his Te Deum.
The opening Sinfonia is a brilliant enough piece all on its own, but the chorus that immediately follows takes us to yet another level of excitement, setting a sumptuously decorated stage for what is to come. Although there's a substantial amount of music here, no one section stays too long, and the arias show care for musical beauty well beyond anything suggested by the texts. And there's nothing pale or simple in the writing either, whether for instruments or voices: much of it, especially the vocal solos, requires performers of considerable accomplishment, even virtuosity. The opening chorus is quite a tour de force, and in this performance we're treated to the lovely sound and impeccable technique of the boys' and men's voices of the Czech choir Boni Pueri. That this is a Czech production mirrors its original performance in Prague's Jesuit Clementinum, which not only involved native Czech singers and actors, but also was conducted by the Czech-born Zelenka. The orchestral writing, which includes such ceremonial staples as trumpets and timpani, used to great effect, is bright-spirited and masterfully constructed to hold our interest and maintain dramatic momentum. The soloists are generally very good and there's some really terrific interaction in duets and in dialogs with the chorus. The sound is full-bodied and sufficiently detailed to give immediate presence to all the performers while preserving appropriate balances. Anyone who enjoys large-scale Baroque choral/orchestral music will love this unusual and musically engaging work--another gem in the crown of a composer that's finally getting just recognition.
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com Reviewing original release, Supraphon 3520
Foerster: Violin Concertos / Zenaty, Belohlávek, Bbc So
Supraphon
CD · 1 disc
$31.99Jun 20, 2008
FOERSTER Violin Concertos: No. 1 in c;1 No. 2 in d • Ivan Ženatý (vn); Ji?í B?lohlávek, cond; BBC SO • SUPRAPHON 3961 (65:23) Live: London 12/8/20071
Jan Kubelík urged Josef Bohuslav Foerster to write his First Violin Concerto, which Kubelík played for the first time in Chicago in October 1910. It’s a grand Romantic work, as ingratiating melodically as Bruch’s or Goldmark’s concertos but colored—or, at least, tinted—with references to the composer’s Czech ethnicity but even more strongly influenced by the virtuoso tradition, which it perhaps owes to Kubelík, who wrote a cadenza for the premiere that bejewels its soaring melodiousness. (The notes also explain that the Concerto served as a sort of test run for Foerster’s fourth opera, The Unvanquished, with its violinist-composer hero.) Ivan Ženatý plays the work’s first movement authoritatively, adding his own cadenza, which differs in style—as so many violinists’ cadenzas do—from the composer’s passages that surround it. Ženatý draws a rich tone from the lower registers of the 1743 Prince of Orange Guarneri del Gesù and a pure and clean sound from its upper ones; such tonal opulence enables him to mine the slow movement’s rich melodic vein. The third movement opens with a triple-time dance-like theme; many virtuoso concertos concluded with dance-like finales, but this one, marked Allegro grazioso, seems more elegantly balletic. Ženatý is at home in the work’s declamatory passages (as at the first movement’s opening) as well as in the ruminative slow movement or in the comparatively genial finale. The engineers have balanced the sonorous orchestral part and the brilliant solo in this live performance (with applause at the end). I believe the performance of the First Concerto on Orfeo 403971 may no longer be available.
The Second Concerto (the program claims to offer the first complete performance of both works), the notes accede, has not claimed the attention of violinists. Sketched in 1917 and 1918 and completed in 1926, the Concerto received its premiere on January 19, 1927. Of a piece with the First Concerto melodically, the Second nevertheless lacks its bravura, relying more heavily on pervasive lyricism. But such ingratiating melodiousness, projected against occasionally gauzy orchestration, should compensate for the Concerto’s lack of brilliance. The first two movements, marked Andante sostenuto and Andante moderato (the second movement flowing almost seamlessly out of the first), finally give way to a concluding Allegro. But while those first two movements hardly lack drama—the orchestra occasionally surges as sonorously as it does in Chausson’s Poème or Delius’s Concerto—the general atmosphere remains ecstatically if intimately tranquil. Even the finale, which begins with a hint of the folk dance, settles back into its characteristic melodic warmth. The recorded sound remains balanced throughout the Second Concerto in a way similar to that of the First, though the studio recording sessions took place on December 4–5, 2007, at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios.
Foerster’s violin concertos offer a continuation of the luxurious melodic flow of those by Bruch, Goldmark, and, especially, Dvo?ák; and Ženatý’s sympathetic performances should provide a warm-hearted introduction to them even for listeners not favorably disposed to the violin music of this period. Very strongly recommended.
Zelenka: Trio Sonatas, ZWV 181 / Ensemble Berlin Prag
Supraphon
CD · 2 discs
$42.99Jan 19, 2018
Reinhard Goebel, an esteemed Baroque music connoisseur, ranks Zelenka among the five best composers of the first half of the 18th century. The cycle of six sonatas for two oboes, bassoon and continuo serves to prove that his assertion is far from being mere hyperbole, that it is a justified opinion worthy of being giving serious thought. Although for many years Zelenka performed all the duties of Kapellmeister and court composer of the Dresden Hofkapelle, he did not gain the appraisal he deserved. Zelenka’s sonatas are among his “free” works, which he wrote urged by innermost needs, above and beyond his official commitments. The pieces reach the very limits of musical possibilities – both as regards placing high technical requirements on the performers and the compositional methods and means of expression applied, including the striking architecture of the cycle as a whole. The result is magnificent and fascinating indeed; owing to its complexity and timelessness, the sonatas may perhaps only be compared with J. S. Bach’s six cello suites. And when these gems are undertaken by musicians as open-minded and of such superlative quality as members of the Berliner Philhamoniker, the listener can look forward to a great feast. The present recording is extraordinary due to the combination of the technical facilities of modern instruments and the profound insight into Baroque performance.
Supraphon's properly pitched, 24-bit remasterings of Sviatoslav Richter's 1956 Schumann Fantasiestücke, Waldszenen, and G minor Marsch convey a richness in the bass and boosted midrange presence quite different from the brighter, leaner sonic image characterizing Deutsche Grammophon's Dokumente and Originals series transfers. Richter habitually omitted Grillen and Fabel from Fantasiestücke, yet he played the other six pieces beautifully. The pianist's gorgeous legato touch justifies his unorthodox stretching out of Warum's last section, while his supple and sharply honed fingers make easy work of Aufschwung and Traumes Wirren. Although Richter likened the recording studio to "the torture chamber", he sounds free as a bird throughout his ravishingly tinted, technically dazzling Waldszenen. Lastly, a live November 1959 C major Fantasy stands out for a sense of risk and forward impetus in the first two movements that's largely absent from Richter's 1961 EMI studio effort, despite the cramped sonics. If you've missed these recordings in the past, don't hesitate now.
DVORAK; SUK; JANACEK; SMETANA; JEZEK; MARTINU; GRIEG; SCHUMANN;RESPIGHI; BRAHMS; SCHUBERT; DEBUSSY; POULENC; FRANCK; MOZART;HONEGGER; KODALY SUK (VIOLIN); HOLECEK, PANENKA, HALA (PIANO), SKAMPA (VIOLA);NAVARRA (CELLO) JOSEF SUK: EARLY RECORDINGS- ROMANTIC PIECES FOR VIOLIN AND PIANOOP. 75; FOUR PIECES FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO, OP. 17; SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO; SONATINA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO IN D MAJOR, OP. 137 NO. 1; SONATINA FOR VIOLIN AND CELLO; ETC.
2018 Gramophone Magazine Chamber Recording of the Year
Seven years after they triumphed with Dvorák’s quartets, Pavel Haas Quartet are back to Dvorák. For the occasion of recording his quintets, they have invited two guests: the pianist Boris Giltburg (winner of 2013 Queen Elizabeth Competition), as well as one of the PHQ founding members, violist Pavel Nikl. Antonín Dvorák composed his Piano Quintet No. 2 while staying at his beloved summer house in Vysoká in the late summer of 1887. The renowned critic Eduard Hanslick responded to its performance in Vienna enthusiastically: "It is one of his most beautiful works. A genuine Dvorák.“ The String Quintet op. 97, albeit only six years younger, presents a completely "different Dvorák“. After the Symphony from the New World and the “American” quartet, the string quintet is the composer’s third work written in America. Besides drawing inspiration from the music of the Native American tribe of the Iroquois which he heard in Spillville in the summer of 1893, he built the third movement around a theme that he had previously considered using in a proposal for a new American anthem. And Hanslick’s testimonial? "This is probably the simplest, most natural and happiest music composed since Haydn’s times. The ear enjoys it with an easy-going attitude and the spirit is not bored for a single moment.“ Pavel Haas Quartet is at home in Dvorák’s music – to quote the Sunday Times, "In this repertoire, they are simply matchless today.“
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REVIEW:
It is the happiest of reunions and their sense of shared purpose is evident from the very start. Giltburg is completely at one with the quartet, who set off full of sighing pathos. From the off, they make the music their own; their sense of story-telling is very persuasive. Another triumphant addition to the Pavel Haas’s already Award-laden discography.
Brahms: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 and 3 - F.A.E. Sonata
Supraphon
CD · 1 disc
$14.99Mar 25, 2014
"• Jana Vonášková, a member of the Smetana Trio for many years, partners here with the eminent Latvian pianist Irina Kondratenko for this nearly all-Brahms recital.
• Brahms' violin sonatas are touchstones of the chamber music literature
• Rarely recorded or performed, the F.A.E. Sonata is here heard in its entirety.
• New recordings – 2013."
The Old Testament Book of Lamentations has been subjected to a number of settings since the Middle Ages; that of Jan Dismas Zelenka occupies a significant position among them. In his Lamentations, Zelenka succeeded in combining the contemplative aspect with a powerful dramatic charge. His penchant for unusual instrumentation is evident in, for instance, the final Lamentation (solo violin, bassoon and chalumeau). Zelenka only set to music two lessons of the first Nocturne for each day; here, every third reading takes the form of Gregorian chant, as was most likely heard at the Dresden court.
Antonín Dvorák had a passion for chamber music; he liked playing it with friends, and perhaps soon came to realize how good a commercial commodity such pieces represented. He wrote the first of his two piano quartets at the age of 34, by which time many a publisher was interested in his works. The Czech media voiced their satisfaction that Dvorák had moved beyond foreign influence, with the Slavic spirit having prevailed in his music. Cases in point include his Moravian Duets, Op. 20, and Serenades, Op. 22, created at the same time. The publisher Fritz Simrock bitterly regretted having rejected the first quartet, persistently reminding the composer: "I would gladly take a piano quartet, preferably even two". When in the summer of 1889 Dvorák got down to writing his second quartet, he complained of having a "slow hand", yet stressed that he had plenty of ideas: "My head is full of it... I have finished three movements of a new quartet with piano, and the finale will be ready in a few days. It has gone smoothly beyond expectation, with the melodies rolling in to me." The sheer beauty of the piece was cogently described by the prominent Vienna-based critic Eduard Hanslick: "The quartet requires that the listener be considerably attentive and well informed, which, however, really pays off." The ensemble bearing the composer's name have linked up to the feted tradition of their great teachers - Ivan Moravec, Josef Vlach and Milan Škampa. They present Dvorák at his finest, both conventional and sophisticated.
Not only violinists are eternally grateful to Antonio Vivaldi for the sheer abundance of concert works he bequeathed. The instrument he wrote for with the second greatest frequency is the bassoon, for which he created about forty concertos. Two of the most celebrated bookend Václav Vonášek’s debut recording and are supplemented by pieces by other 18th-century masters.
JARMILA NOVOTNÁ OPERA RECITAL • Jarmila Novotná (s); Ezio Pinza (bs);3 Raoul Jobin (t);5 Jan Peerce (t);7 James Melton (t);9 Martial Singher (bar);11 Arturo Toscanini1, Paul Breisach2, Bruno Walter3, Frieder Weissmann4, Thomas Beecham5, Morton Gould6, Ettore Panizza7, Maurice Abravanel8, Frank Black9, Alfred Wallenstein10, Donald Voorhees11, Wilfred Pelletier12, cond; Gibner King (pn);13 Vienna PO;1 Metropolitan Op O;14 Victor O;4 Bell Telephone O11 • SUPRAPHON 4158, mono (79:02) Live, film, and studio performances 1930–1956
ROSSINI Il barbiere di Siviglia: Una voce poco fà (in Czech). MOZART 1Die Zauberflöte: Ach, ich fühls. 2,14Le nozze di Figaro: Non so più; Voi che sapete. 3,14Don Giovanni: Ah, che mi dice mai; Fuggi il traditor. OFFENBACH Les contes d’Hoffmann: Les oiseaux dans la charmille (in German); 4Belle nuit,ô nuit d’amour; 4Elle a fui; 5,14Voyez l’étrange fantasie … C’est un chanson d’amour. VERDI La traviata: 6Tra voi; 7,14Ah, fors’ è lui … Sempre libera; 8Addio del passato; 9Parigi, o cara. PUCCINI La bohème: 10Si mi chiamano Mimi; 11Mimi! Speravo di trovarvi qui. 12,14Tosca: Vissi d’arte. SMETANA 10The Bartered Bride: Ten lásky sen. 4The Kiss: Hajej, m?j andílku. 13Rusalka: O lovely moon
Despite a long, distinguished career of 30 years, 16 of them at the Metropolitan Opera, Jarmila Novotná is known largely to record collectors and students of archive performances. Her one and only intersection with popular culture was an appearance in the M-G-M film The Great Caruso (1951), whose big star was tenor Mario Lanza. In Germany, where she appeared for several years and made some fairly popular films (Fire in the Opera, The Beggar Student, The Bartered Bride, Song of the Lark), she is perhaps better known, and in her native (now former) Czechoslovakia she is considered to be on a par with Emmy Destinn and Maria Jeritza. In her early years, when she was a high soubrette, the voice was ear-ravishing lovely, even sparkling in sound, but by 1937 her tone was becoming a bit heavier and her upper range less easy; thus, by the time she made her Met debut (January 5, 1940, in La bohème opposite Jussi Björling), the voice had become darker. But she was an excellent stage actress, an outstanding musician (she had already sung such offbeat works as Ravel’s L’heure espagnole, at Otto Klemperer’s Kroll Opera, as well as Krenek’s The Life of Orestes, and Schoenberg’s Die glückliche Hand) and a fine stage actress. She was a favorite soprano of such conductors as Zemlinsky, Erich Kleiber, Walter, Szell, and Toscanini.
One thing you can’t miss from the opening track—Rossini’s “Una voce poco fà” sung in Czech—was that she sang with her high range too “open,” much the same way Bidú Sayão did in her “coloratura” years, and with similar results; both had to come down to the lyric range because they blew it out. You can hear the difference immediately after the Rossini aria, in her the “Ach, ich fühls” from Die Zauberflöte in Toscanini’s ill-fated Salzburg performance (ill-fated due to the overloud singing of his Tamino, Helge Rosawenge, and the botched, out-of-key performance of the Queen of the Night, Julie Osvath). Yet you can also hear her phrasing becoming tighter and more musical, less scatter-gun in her approach to producing notes. To modern ears, more used to mezzo Cherubinos, Novotná sounds rather light and very girlish (even Christine Schäfer, one of our few soprano Cherubinos nowadays, sings the music with a darker tone than this), but once again she is very fine, particularly in “Voi, che sapete.” Despite a slightly slower tempo than we are used to today, this performance could pass muster in our modern opera houses. But one does sense a loss from her earlier voice with its bright, open tone: The sound, now slightly covered, is no longer as distinctive. In Donna Elvira’s “Ah, che mi dice mai,” the voice no longer has any “bite” up top, despite splendid singing (and Bruno Walter’s tempo is much too fast for this music), but both soprano and conductor sound better in “Fuggi il traditor.”
The three excerpts from Les contes d’Hoffmann point out the differences well: the very early (1930) “Doll song” in German sung with light, pointed tone (and good trills), the “Barcarolle” and “Elle a fui” (now in French, from 1945) sounding more covered and bit muddy in tone, as is the 1944 duet with Jobin (a rather plain, ugly-sounding vocalist who was the Met’s preferred French tenor of the 1940s). By this point in her career, Novotná was also breaking her phrases a bit more frequently for breath than she had just a few years earlier.
The four Traviata excerpts, ranging in date from 1940 (“Addio del passato”) to 1950 (“Parigi, o cara”) are interesting in showing how Novotná built a character up throughout an opera. She was not the equal of an Olivero or Mattila, but in some moments she was interesting in a general way. In “Ah, fors’ e lui” she sings the descending opening line with the rests between the notes, the way Verdi wrote them, but after the tenor’s lines in “Sempre libera” she makes a mistake, correcting herself quickly. There is, however, no feeling in her “Addio del passato,” which is also conducted much too quickly by Abravanel. The voice is so dark by the time of her 1950 “Parigi, o cara” that it is almost unrecognizable as the same singer, and there is no feeling of loss or desperation in her voice. She might as well have been singing about her missing dog. (To be fair, however, her partner in this duet, James Melton, sings with no expression whatever.) There is a bit of expression in her “Si, mi chiamano Mimì” from 1943, but again, it’s just a sort of “generic Puccini sound,” nothing particularly personal in her tone or expression. The Mimì-Marcello duet with Singher (a rather gray-sounding and uninteresting baritone who was the Met’s French baritone counterpart to Jobin) shows, once again, Novotná’s generic, all-purpose acting style.
Although Novotná does not give out any more emotionally in the Czech operatic excerpts, the voice does sound more comfortable than in Italian or French. Hers is one of the better performances I’ve heard of the Bartered Bride aria, and the best I’ve heard of the aria from The Kiss. But I still have to rate Elfride Trötschel, Zinka Milanov, and Renée Fleming better in “O lovely moon” from Rusalka. (Novotná’s performance is also cut, missing one section.)
All in all this is an interesting cross-section of performances by a now-neglected soprano, though I’d much rather have had one of her excerpts from the German Bartered Bride film in place of the Tosca aria.
