Fedora: Like the hat, which took its name from the play on which the opera is based, Umberto Giordano's "Fedora" is hardly ever seen these days. He wrote the opera in 1898 in what must have been an absent-minded moment. How else to explain that Princess Fedora Romazoff (sic) does not have an aria? Usually composers will squeeze one out for the soprano. Neither is the tenor particularly favored. All he gets is "Amor ti vieta." It is surely the shortest aria in operatic history, though not short enough the way José Carreras labors through it on the new CBS/Hungaroton release.

What an irritating work this is, lush with atmosphere and melodic stretches that never quite cover the basic gaps and talky drivel. The story is interesting: A Russian princess living in Paris discovers at a tea party that the man she is falling in love with, Loris Ipanoff, once murdered her fiance in St. Petersburg. Giordano contrasts their agitated whispers against a pianist playing a dreamy nocturne definitely not written by Taneyev.

The different musical textures in this spellbinding scene almost convince one that "Fedora" might work on stage with a grand soprano and a personable tenor. A revival decades ago with Renata Tebaldi and Giuseppe di Stefano seems to have sent audiences home very happy. And a staging with Eva Marton guzzling the last act's poisonous brew would no doubt be memorable theater. Here on this release, relying only on her voice, with its rather impersonal timbre, she is not always compelling. But the Hungarian supporting cast, conducted by Giuseppe Patane, offers idiomatic contributions, though the libretto does not reveal what we really want to know: Who wears the fedora? Fedora?

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