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Ivan
Petroff sings great baritone arias: Pagliacci,
La Favorita,
I Puritani, Rigoletto,
The Barber of Seville, Macbeth.
Remington
RLP-199-58/60: Rigoletto with Orlandina Orlandini, Ivan Petroff, Gino
Sarri and Mario Frosini and conductor Erasmo Ghiglia.
Excerpts
from the complete Rigoletto recording.
Click
here for more opera on Remington.
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It
was originally intended that Ivan Petroff should become a lawyer and
initially he carried out his father's wishes. Petroff studied law
in Vienna. Eventually however, he persuaded his parent to allow him
to visit Naples for three months under the pretext of taking a course
in Italian law. While there he met the great Neapolitan tenor Fernando
de Lucia (October 11, 1860 - February 23, 1925).
De Lucia had sung in the premiere of Mascagni's Amico Fritz (1891)
and Iris (1898), and he had been the first Canio in I Pagliacci (Leoncavallo)
in London. He was a man of the belcanto. His most famous pupils were
Gianna Pederzini and Enzo de Muro. But as he was most impressed with
the baritone voice of 19 year old Petroff and with his eagerness to
study, he gave him lessons too.
This short period
of study was certainly most significant for Petroff's development.
When it was time for him to return to Vienna, Petroff first traveled
to his homeland Bulgaria and interrupted his journey and gave a recital
in Sofia. His parents were so astounded with his success and obvious
talent, that they agreed to allow him to return to Naples to continue
his musical studies.
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Ivan
Petroff (sometimes spelled Petrov).
Picture taken from the cover
of Remington R-199-93 and edited.
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In 1928 Petroff
made a successful debut in Bologna, Italy, in the opera The Barber
of Seville. Basso profundo Feodor Chaliapin (February 13,
1873 - April 4, 1938), heard this performance and engaged him as principal
baritone in his opera company for a number of years. For Ivan Petroff
this was a most valuable experience as during this period he sang
and acted in over 50 roles.
 After
the death of Chaliapin in 1938, Petroff sought refuge in the United
States and eventually became an American citizen. For 5 years he toured
with the San Francisco Opera Company and toured in the United States,
Canada and South America. From 1943 till 1946 he sang at the San Francisco
Opera House and from 1946 on he was engaged at Laszlo Halasz'
New York City Centre Opera Company, hence the link with Don Gabor
and Remington. After his appearances at the Maggio Musicale of Florence
he returned to the US and was until his death a member of the Pacific
Opera Company, again in San Francisco.
Ivan Petroff
on Remington:
R-199-40: Il Pagliacci (Leoncavallo) - Vocal Highlights with
Anne La Pollo, Ivan Petroff, Gino Sarri, Bruno Donati, Orchestra of
the Maggio Musiale Fiorentino, the chorus of Teatro Communale, conducted
by Erasmo Giglia. This recording was later issued on the Masque label
(M 10013).
RLP-199-58/60:
Rigoletto (Verdi) with Orlandina Orlandini, Ivan Petroff, Gino
Sarri and Mario Frosini and conductor Erasmo Ghiglia. Released in
1952.
Warren De Motte says in his
Long
Playing Record Guide: "Remington's forces know their way
around this score. They perform without distinction, albeit with competence
and the recording is fair." There is mention that Don Gabor travelled
to Italy at several occasions. At one of those early visits he may
have negotiated the release of the performances of Petroff and others
on the Remington label. The Rigoletto recording was made when Petroff
made many guest appearances at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. He
sang there with other famous opera singers like Astrid Varnay in the
role of Macbeth.
Preiser records
has transferred this performance onto CD. The reviewer states that
the sound is far beyond an acceptable level. The reason is that the
transfer of the original tape to the matrices for the Remington discs
was not too successful. Don Gabor often made a copy of the original
tapes, using a less sophisticated tape recorder, and the tape with
the dubbed recording was used as the source for cutting the lacquer.
So one could agree if the Preiser CD was done from those tapes. But
Preiser states that the recording was transferred to CD using the
original tapes. Original can mean either tape.
Remington discs do have less harshness if played back using a moving
magnet cartridge with a spherical diamond tip. For private use it
may even be better to use a ceramic or crystal pick up cartridge as
they were generally used in the nineteen fifties.
When transferring old tapes, be it of a piano, a violin, an orchestra
or a complete opera cast, many technicians are too eager to completely
clean up the signal, and often to such an extend that there is not
much naturalness left. The signal may be clean, but the music may
have lost much of its warmth and harmony and the performance loses
much of its original charm.
Laura
Homonnay-Demilio writes about Ivan Petroff's Highlights of
Pagliacci (R-199-40, released 1951) and Excerpts from the complete
recording of Rigoletto, (R-199-103, released 1953). She dedicates
this review to her father
who certainly loved classical and operatic music and recognized Remington
records as a popular budget brand in his youth and a quickly inexpensive
way to amass a record collection and find some real treasures.
Once more the allure of an earthy performance compensates for
the frankly terrible recording quality of Remington’s offering
of Pagliacci highlights, heralding from that very early 1950’s
market of cheap Long-Play record labels. The ambience is, as
usual, tinny and with too much treble, and only the use of the
amplifier's tone controls will somewhat help the (alarmingly
so, for its reputation) thin and scrappy-sounding Maggio Musicale
Fiorentino orchestra somewhat perfunctorily led by Erasmo Ghiglia.
But here we have a featured baritone in Ivan Petroff, gamely
taking on and succeeding in portraying two characters within
the same opera, which was one of the perks of the recording
industry; not least for the money it saved, although almost
always this device was applied to very minor, bit-part roles
and never leads. Petroff, however, portrays the bitterly scheming
hunchback Tonio, and Nedda’s clandestine lover from the
village, Silvio.
The Prologo is tuneful and characterful, with a fast vibrato,
and none of the lachrymose affectations many Tonios assume in
their starring solo opening the opera. Reflective at the right
moments, Petroff nevertheless “gets on with it” and
announces the command to ring up the curtain without the stagey
bray some Tonios feel compelled to call for.
Selections
on any Pagliacci recording are considerably less truncated than
other “highlights” albums because it is a short opera,
but still there has to be some abbreviation to accommodate one
budget-quality LP disc. Gino Sarri’s Canio seems a little
thin for a tenor on his Un tal Gioco, yet he is adept and musical,
with good high notes, only a little noticeably below the stave
in his later Vesti la Giubba, and unfortunately giving way to
the campy sobbing of Canios the world over.
Anne Lo Pollo’s Nedda is interesting – she sounds
like Carla Gavazzi, a star soprano of Italy’s Cetra records,
but without the shimmering vibrato, and admittedly there is
little bottom to her voice, as well as obvious strain during
her Bird Song. She comports herself with satisfactory drama
when it comes to the love duet with Petroff, and now, instead
of the frustrated, thwarted clown he is the ardent lover. Somehow
the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra wakes up and remembers
they are an outfit with some merit, and not a fistful of exhausted
post war musicians holding forth on cheap shellac and vinyl.
Through the raspy, muddy blur of low-quality manufacture and
acidic indifference of instruments suddenly comes music to match
the drenched heat -- more romantic than libidinous - -of adulterers
on a summer afternoon, and Petroff’s voice is quite beautiful
here.
Bruno Donati portrays a youthful, strong Beppe – I so like
his voice, with its prominent Florentine pronounciation, that
I wish he’d been cast as the Canio, but he’s certainly
affective and one can picture this Beppe as a strapping post-teen
who would have been just as useful a stage hand as he is the
comedic performer in the play.
Fortunately for listeners, the action doesn’t crumble into
a mélange of they’ve-just-been-stabbed screams when
Canio confronts the cheaters. The opera ends on a blast of cheap-LP
shrillness but the point has come across.
In Rigoletto,
Petroff leads as the gruff hunchback. Although this recording
in its complete form has been complimented as being a very serviceable
“despite” – despite harsh recording sound, a
couple of less-than-starring principals, and sometimes live-performance-level
acoustics, it can be rated up there as acquitting itself passably
with big-name labels. However, Petroff seems to give a slightly
more heartfelt and warmer manner of singing in the mixed-bag
notoriety of Remington’s editions of Cavalleria Rusticana
and Tosca. His Cortigiani tends to heavy breathing in some spots
and he even labors a bit in his “Piangii” duet with
Gilda – perhaps running out of a little steam?
Gino Sarri is more refulgent in this recording as the Duke of
Mantua – some now-expected strain, but no hamminess. Orlandina
Orlandini (WHAT a name!) is an adequate if somewhat vinegary
Gilda, sometimes quavering off the staff and not quite tuneful.
I very much like the basso. Perhaps when I obtain a copy of
the complete recording , and with less surface scratch and the
distracting clicks and crackles of a much-played, inexpensive
early-50’s LP, I can more thoroughly review this recording.
- Laura Homonnay-Demilio, February 2011.
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R-199-74/2
(2 LP) Cavalleria Rusticana (Mascagni) with Vassilka Petrova,
Eddy Ruhl, Ivan Petroff, Rina Benucci, Lidia Malani. Orchestra of
the Maggio Fiorentino and Chorus of the Teatro Communale and conductor
Erasmo Ghiglia. Released in May 1952.
R-199-93:
Ivan Petroff sings great baritone
arias. The orchestra of the Maggio Fiorentino is conducted by Erasmo
Ghiglia. These performances were previously released on Continental
107 and is listed in Schwann Long Playing Record Catalog, September
1950 edition.
R-199-103:
Excerpts from the complete Rigoletto recording. Released in 1953.
Preiser 20017
CD contains the Rigoletto recording and the recording of the arias.
Ivan
Petroff performed with Maria Callas, Kurt Baum and Giulietta
Simionato in 'Il Trovatore' in Mexico in 1950. And there is a
recording of 'Macbeth' with
Astrid Varnay and conductor Vittorio
Gui taped in 1951.
Rudolf
A Bruil - February 2002
Note: Baritone
Ivan Petroff should not be confounded with the Russian basso Ivan
Petrov who was born in 1920 in Irkutsk (Siberia) and is known for
his outstanding performance of Boris Godunov.
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