"RECITAL" 1988. Scalera, piano. No texts or translations. Q Records 75679291622.

This live recording celebrates a triumph -- a concert given in 1988, after José Carreras underwent successful treatment for leukemia. There was widespread relief that one of the foremost tenors of the day had survived months of treatment and recuperation and had returned to the stage. (For once, the real-life circumstances of an opera singer matched the genre's heroic demands.) Those who heard this tenor early in his career remember the extraordinarily sweet, full, luxurious lyrical ardor of Carreras's voice. It was worthy of comparison to the sounds of earlier paragons such as di Stefano and Gigli. At this performance, some of those rich vocal moments excite the audience to loud demonstrations of appreciation, and they affect the contemporary ear just as potently.

But today, our pleasure must be tinged with bittersweet emotions. The recording also confirms that the glory of Carreras's voice hadn't returned with his recovery. Certainly allowances must be made for any weakening of the tenor's instrument sustained from vanquishing a life-challenging illness. But the fraying tone and weakening support were not new symptoms post-recovery (as some claimed at the time); they were troubling flaws that began to emerge not long after the singer reached international prominence. In maintaining a busy career, Carreras not only bullied his voice into heavy roles he shouldn't have tried (a series of performances and recordings he made with Herbert von Karajan sound particularly unfortunate today) but gave "heavy" interpretations of parts that should have been perfect for him. (I remember hearing him bellow through a Met La Bohème as if he were singing Il Trovatore.) He never had Luciano Pavarotti's impulsive emotional connection with his music (and audience) or Plácido Domingo's technical skill and dramatic diligence. Carreras was the kind of singer who applied a generalized emotional energy -- excitement, ardor, sorrow -- to roles or songs, often ending them with surges of vocal pressure that got increasingly tenuous over the years.

So this 1988 recital discloses a mixture of Carrerases, the voice sounding backward into reminders of his early, splendid years, as well as forward, with vocal problems increasingly overtaking his superb instrument. His finest moments are in the Petrarch Sonnets of Franz Liszt: Carreras sometimes delivers the words with real feeling, and his vocal line, when he relaxes the pressure, flows with its wonted beauty. At its freest on this occasion, singing Puccini and Tosti songs, Carreras's voice still had a presence, a full-blooded assurance, that were intoxicating. These successes make it easier to forgive the leaden delivery of other numbers and the questionable intonation and unsteady tone heard so frequently throughout the evening. The relish with which the tenor tears to tatters the passion of Catari's "Core 'ngrato" calls for repeated listenings.

Copyright © 2000 Metropolitan Opera Guild, Inc.