Granados Goyescas (opera)

[Alan Howe]

So where has this been all my life?>>>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bagh9K8oag

[Mark Thomas]

Must be catching: I have recordings of four early operas by Granados, each of them well put together and enjoyable, but somehow have never bothered with Goyescas. Odd, isn't it?

[adriano]

Before it has become this unauthorized download on Youtube, it was a commercial CD (1996)!
A really splendid recording.
Unfortunately it has become rather difficult to obtain:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Granados-Goyescas-Enrique/dp/B000024JRO
https://www.amazon.de/Granados-Casariego-Orquesta-Sinf%C3%B3nica-Baquerizo/dp/B01N30VWE2

Nobody remembers that 1957 DECCA LPO conducted by the great Ataulfo Argenta?
Consuelo Rubio and Manuel Ausensi figured in the cast. It was a slightly cut version to allow it to be fit on one LP.

His longer opera "Maria del Carmen" is available on Naxos.

[Alan Howe]

I've found a copy of the YouTube Auvidis/Valois recording, so I'm really looking forward to that.

[adriano]

Muy bien, Alan :-)
The music of the third tableau of "Goyescas" is extremely wonderful!
And, if you need a (CDR) transfer of the old DECCA LP, let me know. I have realised quite a good one, respecting the great DECCA mono sound of that time. Only scratches and cracklings were filtered.
There is a guy (from France, I think) selling such kind of LP transfers. Once I bought from him the Nicolai Te Deum - and the Granados, but I was very disapponted. So I bought the original LPs again and started doing transfers of my own. I have an LP player with an analog-to-digital module and a digital signal output, with I subsequently can read-in as .wave, .mp3, .flac etc. files.

[Alan Howe]

That's very kind, Adriano. I'll let you know. By the way, one of my reasons for buying the Auvidis/Valois recording was the singing of tenor Ramón Vargas who has a most beautiful, evenly-produced voice.

[adriano]

I fully agree with you, Alan!
I have Vargas' recordings of La Favorite, Il Turco in Italia, I Capuletti e i Montecchi and Tancredi (with Eva Mei).
Incidentally, I will have lunch with Eva in about an hour :-)

[Alan Howe]

What a lovely occasion that will be!

[Alan Howe]

Now that my copy of the Auvidis/Valois recording has arrived and I have listened to it, I am embarrased to admit that I did not know this absolutely sublime opera. How on earth can that have happened? (Answer: ignorance, of course!)

It'll take something extraordinary for this not to be my discovery of 2019...

[adriano]

There is a new recording of Granados's "Goyescas":

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enrique-Granados-Goyescas/dp/B07PXD7SFQ/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=granados+goyescas&qid=1559306696&s=music&sr=1-2

I received it today and will come back tomorrow or so to tell how I like it :-)
Harmonia Mundi's Spanish series is quite exciting!

[Alan Howe]

It's on my 'radar' too, Adriano. The Auvidis/Valois recording is so well sung, though, that I'm not sure what advantage there would be in buying the newcomer.

[adriano]

Now about this new recording of "Goyescas" by Harmonia Mundi:

It's a January 2018 live recording from the Barbican. One can hear distant page turnings and coughing only in-between single "numbers", so this is not at all disturbing.
The (excellent) BBC Symphony is excellently conducted by Joep Pons and the BBC Chorus does a great job. Of course it's impossible to check whether its Spanish pronounciation is correct or not...

The singers have all very sympathetic voices, but not all too characteristic and "strong" enough to prove that this is actually a dramatic verismo opera. There is no obvious timbre difference between the soprano and the mezzo. The tenor is rather good, but nothing more than that. The soprano has occasional slight pitch problems...

The 1994 Audivis recording with María Bayo and Ramón Vargas, is, in my opinion, much better and more "typically Spanish". Maria Bayo's voice is that of a real high soprano. And, of course, Ramon Vargas is superb. Antoni Ros-Marbà (also a specialist of Zarzuelas) is a fabulous and passionate conductor, a pupil of another (forgotten) great Spanish conductor: Eduard Toldrà.

In my opinion, even the old (slightly abridged) Decca recording of 1957 (with a super cast too) is to be considered a great performance. And an important document of the fabulous conductor Ataúlfo Argenta, who died in his garage of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning at the age of 45.

Decca never re-issued this "Goyescas" recording on CD. They even did not care to include it to the Ataúlfo Argenta box of their "Original Masters" series:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Original-Masters-Ataulfo-Argenta/dp/B000G6BJKI/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=ataulfo+argenta&qid=1559458019&s=music&sr=1-2

This sort of transfer is very bad:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enrique-Granados-Goyescas-Ataulfo-Argenta/dp/B01K8NLWMS/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=ataulfo+argenta+goyescas&qid=1559458219&s=music&sr=1-1-catcorr
- I offered them my own transfer, but they did not react - perhaps they were offended of my criticism :-)

Even though this new Barbican performance is quite atmospheric and tense enough (one must get used to its typical reverb), it has not the impact of the very present Audivis studio recording made in Madrid with a Spanish orchestra and a Spanish chorus.

A pity that nobody has tried yet to record this opera with its original spoken dialogues. They are an important element!

I just wonder what were the reviews of this 2018 concert...

[Alan Howe]

I'll be sticking with the Auvidis/Valois recording. Thanks for this review, Adriano - very enlightening.

[adriano]

In the old Decca recording, Consuelo Rubio is just wonderful. I just re-listened it this morning 06:00 time.
Remember her Marguerite in Markevitch's "La Damnation de Faust"?

[Alan Howe]

I need better sound: Granados' score is wonderful, after all. I also find Argenta somewhat laboured in the opening - Antoni Ros Marbà is much more dynamic. But that may be because I'm used to his performance.