Fausto Cleva conducts music of Verdi and Gounod

 A nice lp of familiar music by Gounod and Verdi conducted by Fausto Cleva, longtime resident conductor of French and Italian repertoire at New York's Metropolitan Opera. Maestro Cleva leads the Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera Association in vigorous and purposeful performances, if not the first word in refinement.

Fausto Cleva was the real deal in that he was wholly and totally a creature of the opera house. A tireless conductorand trainer, he led over 700 performances at the Met, along with hundreds more at opera houses from Havana to Helsinki. Cleva had a strong reputation of working effectively and constructively with singers and his intimate knowledge of the stage led to a level of consistency that surprisingly few others could attain to. A Cleva production was usually a guarantee of quality and integrity.

The Met Orchestra during these recordings (mid 50's) was far from the orchestra it is today. In fact, some recent critics have labelled the Met as one of the great performing ensembles on the planet. Back in Cleva's day, the Met had fewer full time musicians and relied more on subs and  freelancers to fill the ranks. That said, Cleva does obtain the desired result as the the performances are idiomatic and appropriately exciting in all the right places.

A nice remembrance of a fine musician.
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Andre Kostelanetz conducts Opera without Words

In his day, Andre Kostelanetz was American Columbia's answer to Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops. A talented conductor, arranger, and instrumentalist, Kostelanetz could do it all and the results of his talent were scores of light classics that sold in the millions, financing many projects for the more "serious" classics released by Ormandy, Szell, Mitropoulos, among others.

Time though, has not been kind to Kostelanetz. Whereas Fiedler is still a household name some 30+ years after his death, Kostelanetz has all but faded from the scene. I wonder if this could be due to the fact that most of the latter's works were recorded with "anonymous" orchestras while Fiedler always had the famed "Pops" on the label in equal billing. Well, just a thought.

Kostelanetz did view himself as somewhat of a musical educator and his arrangements of music from La Traviata and La Boheme were efforts to capsule highlights from these masterworks into a neat 40 minute package. From my perch, I believe he succeeded brilliantly and these two productions are executed on a high order. In fact, Erich Kunzel would revisit these Kostelanetz efforts much later, inspiring him to record more "opera without words" thus snagging a few grammys along the way.

I hope you enjoy this well filled offering as much as I do. Both date from the early 50's I would say.

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