Final passages of the Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde sung by Giuseppina Cobelli (1898-1948), with the Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala, Milan, conducted by Victor De Sabata on 11 Dec 1930 in a live performance. The newly-found photos give us an idea of her magnificent stage presence and show us why many of her colleagues and Italian opera goers of the 1920s and 1930s were so enamored by her.
Cobelli was the prima donna who, together with Giannina Arangi-Lombardi, ruled Milan's Teatro alla Scala in the late 1920s and the early 1930s. The dramatic soprano has been little known in the English-speaking world due to the concentration of her career in Italy and occasional trips to South America. Given her stature at La Scala it is quite astounding that two 78s -- "Suicidio!" (La Gioconda) and "Voi lo sapete" (Cavalleria Rusticana) are all that she left as her commercially recorded legacy. Her career was later beleaguered by growing deafness. She retired from the operatic stage in 1942 and assumed a humble life as a hotel proprietress before dying of cancer in 1948. She had been highly regarded with the greatest admiration and respect both as a singer of great personal beauty and stage presence as well as astonishing histrionic capacity by several contemporaries, including Maria Caniglia, Ebe Stignani, Magda Olivero, Eva Turner and Mafalda Favero. Favero spoke of Cobelli's Isolde as a portrayal that "absolutely always tore me apart" and expressed her gratitude for "the pain she had made me suffer, a sort of cleansing and purification." Olivero recounted Cobelli with fondness, saying that "When Cobelli left, I inherited Adriana from her. She was intelligent, a beautiful woman with an exciting personality and a wonderful voice," adding with great regret that "she's never spoken of today." Given her meagre recorded legacy, it is highly fortunate that broadcast recordings of snippets from a live performance of Tristan und Isolde (in Italian translation) on 11 Dec 1930 at La Scala conducted by Victor De Sabata managed to survive. The present excerpt gives us the final ecstatic passages of Isolde's Liebestod, with Cobelli's warm, full, sensuous, vibrant voice shining out like a beacon amidst the engulfing orchestral tides of overwhelming white heat propelled by Victor De Sabata. Yes the sound may be terrible, but Cobelli's voice seems to triumph against the swish and fog of the recording. Due to her almost non-existent recording career, she has been largely forgotten until today, yet as CurzonRoad had commented, as evident from these very few rare recordings of her singing that have survived, she is "clearly an interesting and formidable artist." Cobelli simply deserves to be rediscovered.
Watch videos with other singers performing Liebestod:
Mild und leise wie er lächelt, wie das Auge hold er öffnet --- Seht ihr's, Freunde? Seht ihr's nicht? Immer lichter wie er leuchtet, stern-umstrahlet hoch sich hebt? Seht ihr's nicht? Wie das Herz ihm mutig schwillt, voll und hehr im Busen ihm quillt? Wie den Lippen, wonnig mild, süßer Atem sanft entweht --- Freunde! Seht! Fühlt und seht ihr's nicht? Hör ich nur diese Weise, die so wundervoll und leise, Wonne klagend, alles sagend, mild versöhnend aus ihm tönend, in mich dringet, auf sich schwinget, hold erhallend um mich klinget? Heller schallend, mich umwallend --- Sind es Wellen sanfter Lüfte? Sind es Wogen wonniger Düfte? Wie sie schwellen, mich umrauschen, soll ich atmen, soll ich lauschen? Soll ich schlürfen, untertauchen? Süß in Düften mich verhauchen? In dem wogenden Schwall, in dem tönenden Schall, in des Welt-Atems wehendem All --- ertrinken, versinken --- unbewußt --- höchste Lust!
English Libretto or Translation:
Mildly and gently, how he smiles, how the eye he opens sweetly --- Do you see it, friends? Don’t you see it? Brighter and brighter how he shines, illuminated by stars rises high? Don’t you see it? How his heart boldly swells, fully and nobly wells in his breast? How from his lips delightfully, mildly, sweet breath softly wafts --- Friends! Look! Don’t you feel and see it? Do I alone hear this melody, which wonderfully and softly, lamenting delight, telling it all, mildly reconciling sounds out of him, invades me, swings upwards, sweetly resonating rings around me? Sounding more clearly, wafting around me --- Are these waves of soft airs? Are these billows of delightful fragrances? How they swell, how they sough around me, shall I breathe, Shall I listen? Shall I drink, immerse? Sweetly in fragrances melt away? In the billowing torrent, in the resonating sound, in the wafting Universe of the World-Breath --- drown, be engulfed --- unconscious --- supreme delight!