FAUST (performed in Russian)
Mark Reizen, Ivan Kozlovsky, Elizabeta Shumskaya
Ivan Bourlak, Yelena Gribova, Nina Ostroumova
Chorus and Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theater, Moscow
dir : Vassily Nebolsin
Lys 301-303 (mono) - 3 CDs [P] 1998
Currently out-of-print
Original recording by All-Union Radio, Moscow 1948
FLAC image files, cuesheets, logs, scans, beautiful booklet with many pictures
There are 10 additional excerpts from Faust, sung in Russian, which serve as fillers on CD3. See booklet for details.
"There is no denying that Faust sounds somewhat odd in Russian. ... At the same time, the Soviet Union may be the only place where the tradition of full-scale grand opera survived into the 1950s and 1960s ... and the work of the ... soloists is marked by a degree of active belief rarely to be found these days in the West. . . . Ivan Kozlovsly . . . represents a link to another lost operatic tradition: voices of lyric weight capable of projecting with proper force.... His voice was managed with a mastery of technique and phrasing which seem quite astonishing today . . .".
Kenneth Furie. Opera on Record
"This performance of the title role is a musical and dramatic miracle, with a degree of vocal control that is simply astounding. He sings with melting pianissimos, ringing fortes, and everything in between. It is that vast in-between range, with shades of mezzo-piano and mezzo-forte, and mezzo-mezzo that are beyond virtually every other tenor, where Kozlovsky distinguishes himself. And nothing here is fussy or mannered. This is Faust brought to life—impetuous, head-over-heels in love, scared, tender. Everything the role calls for is conveyed by Kozlovsky's vocal color and shading, and his ability to vary vocal intensity.
"Shumskaya is a bit thin-toned, but not in an off-putting way, and she too believes this role in a way that I don't find equaled elsewhere on disc. Furie calls her “possibly the best Marguerite on records,“ a claim that I find perhaps a bit excessive, but not absurd. She cuts right into your heart with the terror she conveys in the church scene, and the fact that she is singing with her real-life husband perhaps brings an extra sense of rapture to the love duet in the garden.
"Reizen 's huge bass voice is enough to scare the pants off anyone. This has to be the kind of sound Gounod imagined for a devil, a thunderous sound used with intelligence and raw power. He manages to bring both dignity and an overpowering presence to the role. Burlak is a more than adequate Valentin, though not on the level of his colleagues, and the rest of the cast is satisfactory."
Henry Fogel. Fanfare