- Booklet languages: English
- Time: 76:59
- Release Date: 2004
Review
"Fonotipia" is the nickname of an Italian company with the long-winded moniker of Società Italiana di Fonotipia Milano. This concern was founded in Milan in 1904 as a branch of the Lindstrom Phonograph Company of Berlin, which had Odeon as its main label. Fonotipia also had an office in Paris where it recorded French artists, issuing most of the results on Odeon rather than Fonotipia. The Fonotipia Company changed hands countless times, but managed to stay in business until 1948, although its defining output is limited to records made before 1920 of Italian opera singers who appeared at the La Scala opera house, representing both renowned international stars and local singers who only made a record or two. Original Fonotipia records are coveted by collectors of early opera recordings, and in Fonotipia: A Centenary Celebration, the English label Symposium has seen fit to assemble a number of out-of-the-way items as a tribute to this legendary recording outfit.Among famous singers, one will find Maria Barrientos, Riccardo Stracciari, Giovanni Zenatello, Eugenia Burzio, Alessandro Bonci, and Giuseppe Anselmi in the course of this collection. Singers whose "complete" recordings are surveyed on other Symposium collections are heard in records only discovered since the older collections were released. Some of the lesser-known singers represent a pleasant surprise, such as Polish bass baritone Adamo Didur, who is heard in a number mostly and unusually accompanied by solo violin, rather than the tinkly, boxy square piano commonly used for Fonotipia recordings. Others are less gratifying, such as Maria De Macchi, whose loss of pitch in the midst of her "Di quai soave lagrime" from Donizetti's Poliuto is rendered all the more painful by the requirement in the score that her sour notes be repeated in the piano accompaniment -- only then they are heard in tune.
Some ultra-rare, non-singing items from the Fonotipia catalog are also represented on Fonotipia: A Centenary Celebration, including an excellently well-recorded solo turn by violinist Jacques Thibaud from 1905 and a recitation by French playwright Victorien Sardou -- these were items recorded at Fonotipia's Parisian facility. The pièce de resistance is the "Disco Commemorativo Omaggio a Verdi," issued in 1913 in observance of Giuseppe Verdi's centenary. Verdi had only been dead 12 years, and the record is made by the regular cast and orchestra belonging to La Scala in 1913. So if one desires to hear the music of Verdi much as Verdi himself heard it, then Fonotipia: A Centenary Celebration is the place to go -- that in itself is a strong recommendation for this collection. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis , Rovi
Performances
| Fonk | |
| Fonotipia: The 13 3/4 Inch Records |
