Notes and Editorial Reviews
This slice of Sayão’s broadcast life preserves her sense of communicative charm with great relish.
The fourth volume in the Sayão series from Cembal d’Amour covers off-air recordings made between 1938 and 1954. Once more the programme reflects the variety of her repertoire and has been chosen to give plenty of opportunities to listen to her in varied music over the years. I daresay there are those who would prefer to hear each broadcast
in toto, and not to flit between recitals and decades, but the principle here is again to start with the obvious operatic music and then to lighten the drama as we move toward songs, and the witty pieces with which the disc ends. It certainly provides 72 minutes of
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constant interest.
Some of the recordings are distinctly boxy, but it’s not sufficient to efface her vivacity quite. That’s true of the Puccini extract where the radiance of the voice can still be appreciated. There’s a touch of overload in the preserved broadcast of the
Rigoletto from 1938 but her pin-point accuracy, coloratura brilliance and narrative gifts are at their most ardent. The
Ballatella from
I Pagliacci finds her in equally fine voice, though we’re a decade on now; the harp comes through well, though again the recording quality is cloudy. The Faust tableau is impressively done, and here the voice can be heard in better aural perspective; listen to her tight, bright trills, the rather extravagantly rolled Gallic ‘r’ and the conversational imperatives of her musicianship, its sheer communicative directness. By 1954, a few years before her retirement, we find the voice has begun to lose its gleaming immediacy; it’s now a touch hard, and not helped by the glassy recording. There’s a distinct difference between this
Manon aria and the succeeding one which was recorded five years earlier and shows the voice in much better estate.
The little run of piano-accompanied 1938 recordings – with Milne Charnley – is a delightful souvenir of her sense of joie de vivre; the Auber
Laughing Song is as enjoyable as the flirty persona she presents in Campra’s
Song of the Butterfly. There’s plenty of personality and élan in Buzzi-Peccia’s
The Beautiful Colombetta. Not to be overlooked is the proud Iberian flair of the Turina song, recorded in 1950, with its glamorous virtuosity intact. Nor too the melancholy of Costa’s
Canto da Saudade or the sassy strength of Longa’s
The Laundress. Maybe following a bit in Supervia’s steps she tries an English song, Carey’s
A Spring Morning, but is clearly in tune with the fun of Dougherty’s two amusing numbers.
In all therefore, this slice of Sayão’s broadcast life preserves her sense of communicative charm with great relish.
-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International
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Works on This Recording
2.
Rigoletto: Caro nome by Giuseppe Verdi
Performer:
Bidu Sayao ()
Conductor:
Wilfrid Pelletier
Period: Romantic
Written: 1851; Italy
Date of Recording: 1938
Length: 4 Minutes 53 Secs.
3.
I Pagliacci: Ballatella by Ruggero Leoncavallo
Performer:
Bidu Sayao ()
Conductor:
Donald Voorhees
Period: Post-Romantic
Written: 1892; Italy
Date of Recording: 09/06/1948
Length: 4 Minutes 38 Secs.
5.
Manon: Adieu, notre petite table by Jules Massenet
Performer:
Bidu Sayao ()
Conductor:
Donald Voorhees
Period: Romantic
Written: 1883-1884; France
Date of Recording: 06/07/1954
Length: 4 Minutes 27 Secs.
12.
Cisnes (Swans) by Alberto Costa
Performer:
Bidu Sayao ()
Conductor:
Wilfrid Pelletier
Date of Recording: 1938
Length: 4 Minutes 43 Secs.
13.
The Bird by John Woods Duke
Performer:
Bidu Sayao ()
Conductor:
Donald Voorhees
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1946; USA
Date of Recording: 09/08/1947
Length: 2 Minutes 11 Secs.
14.
Pastorale (A Spring Morning) by Henry Carey
Performer:
Bidu Sayao ()
Conductor:
Wilfrid Pelletier
Date of Recording: 1938
Length: 3 Minutes 1 Secs.
17.
Just for Today for voice & piano by Blanche Ebert Seaver
Performer:
Bidu Sayao ()
Conductor:
Donald Voorhees
Period: Modern
Date of Recording: 09/17/1951
Length: 2 Minutes 52 Secs.
18.
The New Moon: Lover, come back to me by Sigmund Romberg
Performer:
Bidu Sayao ()
Conductor:
Donald Voorhees
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1928; USA
Date of Recording: 06/01/1953
Length: 3 Minutes 26 Secs.
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