Inge Borkh - Operatic Recital (2017)

Borkh is working with three different conductors here, but there is a consistency in the way each performance manages to give a sense of how the aria fits into the opera as a whole. Lady Macbeth's "La luce langue", conducted by Anatole Fistoulari, has a suitably meditative opening, but by the end of the first section it is a moment of decision, one that comes in definitive form in the final lines. And Lady Macbeth's Act I aria (the letter scene, but with the actual reading of the letter cut), conducted by Rudolf Moralt, finds the aristocratic leanings in the music, reflecting the character's ambitions. Borkh's voice . . . wins points for agility in the staccato notes ignored by most sopranos, and the top B at the end is all one could ask. Similarly, "Son giunta", from "La Forza del Destino", is performed by Borkh and Moralt with the urgency that this moment requires in the complete opera. Rusalka's song to the moon (in German, with Fistoulari) has the sweet, youthful quality needed for this early moment in the story . . . Beethoven's concert aria "Ah! perfido" gets the most specific and rewarding interpretation of all. Borkh and Josef Krips, with his familiar big-band Beethoven and the Vienna Philharmonic, make it sound like a rewrite of Fiordiligi's "Per pietà", from "Cosi Fan Tutte". Beethoven was offended by what he viewed as da Ponte's scandalous libretto for Mozart's opera, and this elegant, aristocratic performance comes across as a corrective.

TRACKLIST

01. Dvorák: Rusalka, Op.114, B. 203 / Act 1-Song to the Moon
02. Gluck: Alceste, Wq. 37 / Act 1-"Divinités du Styx"
03. Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana-"Voi lo sapete"
04. Verdi: Macbeth / Act 2-"La luce langue"
05. Debussy: L'enfant prodigue, L.57-Air de Lia
06. Verdi: La forza del destino / Act 2-"Son giunta…Madre pietosa vergine"
07. Verdi: Un ballo in maschera / Act 2-"Ecco l'orrido campo…Ma dall'arido stelo divulsa"
08. Verdi: Macbeth / Act 1-"Ambizioso spirto…Vieni t'affretta…Or tutti sorgete"
09. Giordano: Andrea Chénier / Act 3-"La mamma morta"
10. Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur / Act 1-"Io son l'umile ancella"
11. Weber: Oberon, J.306 / Act 2-"Ozean! Du Ungeheuer!"
12. Beethoven: Ah perfido!, Op.65