WOLF-FERRARI: Sly
Kabatu, Cantarero; Carreras, Milnes, Guerzoni, Rubiera; Orchestra and Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Gimenez. Text and translation.
Koch/Schwann 3-6449-2 (2)

It is not uncommon for artists, in the autumn of an important career, to take on roles that match their somewhat diminished vocal resources. It is more unusual for such roles to provide a revelation about the artist in question, and even rarer for such an undertaking to provide a revelation about the role itself. In the case of José Carreras and his late-career vehicle of choice, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's 1927 opera Sly, both artist and piece are reintroduced to the public with impressive results. But the title role in Sly is far more than a star turn or cameo by a veteran. This is a "big sing," requiring resources one may have thought the Spanish tenor no longer possessed. Carreras's championing of this largely forgotten work has proved it so stage worthy (and attractive to stars) that next season it will arrive at the Met, with Plácido Domingo as the protagonist.

When Wolf-Ferrari's musical tale of a drunken English poet had its premiere, at La Scala, on December 29, 1927, it was seen as a musically conservative throwback to the nuova scuola that succeeded Verdi, and which did not include composers (aside from Puccini) who wrote more than one or two lasting successes. Berg's Wozzeck and Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex were introduced the year before Sly, and Weill's Mahagonny Songspiel was unveiled the same year; there were many new forms of musical expression in the air. But Wolf-Ferrari was steeped in traditions that he bent to serve his expressive needs, rather than exploding or eradicating them. The result is, happily, a work of freshness and originality, sparked by the persuasive sensuality of the orchestration and the force of characterization written into the score, particularly for the title role. After all the current attention, Sly may return to the near-oblivion in which it spent the better part of seventy-five years. But its moment in the twenty-first-century sun will have shown Sly to be opera of rich musical textures, powerfully dramatic monologues and deft melodic inspiration.

Wolf-Ferrari's score, in fact, is sly, and full of wit. Although the composer was, by birth, half Italian and half German, Sly feels like an identifiably Italianate work, nicely balanced between the sort of pastiche homage to commedia dell'arte with which Wolf-Ferrari succeeded in I Quattro Rusteghi, and the attempt at bloodcurdling drama with which he did not in I Gioielli della Madonna. Wolf-Ferrari had created a number of his own librettos, often based on plays by Goldoni, but this time he enlisted Giovacchino Forzano, who devised a very singable text based on an episode from Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, full of humor and irony, but ultimately tragic. The poet Sly is a sad character, witty and entertaining, but a drunk reduced to performing for tavern crowds. He is whisked away by the Earl of Westmoreland, who has discovered his mistress, Dolly, frolicking in an unseemly tavern haunted by the poet. Sly's abduction will serve to entertain the nobility and the mistress, who's been hungry for some down-to-earth fun. Sly, who has passed out, will awake in the Earl's castle, surrounded by servants and gold, and be told he has been delusional for a decade, merely imagining his squalid existence. The plan proceeds, but it backfires when Dolly falls in love with Sly -- and vice versa. The poet, thrown into a dungeon to decide whether he wishes to remain a jester in the Earl's household or return to the streets of London, avoids both by drinking himself into a stupor, then slashing his wrists with the broken bottle. As lurid as it sounds, the stylish dignity of Wolf-Ferrari's writing saves it from the fate of many an over-the-top verismo epic, elevating it to the intended level of human tragedy.

The cast on this recording, made last year during performances in Barcelona, is mostly excellent, and committed to the drama at hand. But the piece rises or falls on the tenor in the title role. Carreras's expressivity is boundless. Lyrical passages are floated meltingly, not finessed, and are completely text-based and unaffected. The voice sounds bright, secure and far better than at those stadium outings wherein Carreras holds the Three position among The Tenors. He paints this character like a master, with a seemingly limitless palette of colors and nuances. There are no real arias (save for a marvelous song about a bear, which Sly sings to entertain in the tavern); instead, there are long monologues in which most of the melodic inspiration is lavished on the orchestra. The role is centered on the low-ish side, which makes it all possible, but it is by no means a walk in the park. Carreras sounds up to the demands and has the requisite stamina.

Soprano Isabelle Kabatu, who made a favorable impression as Tosca with New York City Opera in 1998, begins a bit thickly, a shade shy of a few high notes, but as the voice warms up, it becomes more pliant and attractive, and her Dolly is suitably sympathetic and torn. It is luxury casting to have Sherrill Milnes as the Earl of Westmoreland. Also impressive is Alessandro Guerzoni as Sly's friend, the sympathetic John Plake. David Gimenez leads a tautly dramatic performance, with the Liceu orchestra giving him the many hues called for in a score that alternately insinuates, taunts, underlines and explodes. The recorded sound is warm and flattering without being overly reverberant.

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