Word: bassos
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...must give him an edgy feeling to see that Enrico Caruso, silent these many years, is right behind him, having posthumously grown in popularity from 20 to 36, thanks to reissues of old recordings. Mario Del Monaco is the most recorded tenor with 39, Fernando Corena the most recorded basso (38), and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, with an astonishing jump from 46 to 82 recordings, the busiest baritone...
Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov (Boris Christoff; Angel) features the best of the half a dozen great Borises in a superb recording. Christoff sings three roles in his amazingly rich basso, and the Sofia National Opera chorus is matchless in the music. Three LPs, sung in Russian...
Bartok: Bluebeard's Castle (Mercury) is a worthy love offering by the friends of the late Bela Bartok. It is an all-Hungarian recording of Bartok's only opera, with Old Friend Basso Mihaly Szekely singing the lead, and Old Friend Antal Dorati conducting. The performances are more devoted than the music justifies: the opera remains a penny poem...
Outside Paris, Christoff is generally considered the best Boris, and his new recording (Angel) is unquestionably the top. London has also recorded the opera's great arias (Columbia), but his claim to the role is more in acting than in voice; his basso register is weak; his voice is a shade too high and light for Boris' thundering miseries. Cesare Siepi sang an unforgettable Boris at the Met for years, but his Mediterranean approach to the role introduces the irrelevant question of Whom Does Boris Love...
Boris' death scene gives every basso the dramatic treat of getting to pitch himself down a flight of stairs if he cares to. In Europe, Christoff and Petrov die quietly, as if by surprise, but the Met's staging invites a good fall. London, the intellectual Boris, dies intelligently-a heave, a cry, a little gasp, and he's gone, rolling gently down the stairs. Hines, though, plays it for all he's worth. Clawing the air, grasping his heaving chest, he cries his final line ("Forgive me! Forgive me!") and pitches himself headlong down...