It may have been a surprise to see this album vault onto classical best-seller charts in early 2024. The project of transferring
Puccini's music to a purely orchestral medium is something of an odd one, for the action of his operas is continuous, not falling into neat musical units, and he was a vocal composer par excellence. Moreover, less than half of this release by conductor
Carlo Rizzi and the
Welsh National Opera Orchestra is given over to the Symphonic Suites, which were made by
Rizzi himself. The rest is devoted to early orchestral pieces
Puccini wrote as a conservatory student in Milan; these are not exactly common, but they have been recorded often enough. The attraction to audiences, however, is that
Rizzi has done an impressive job with his arrangements. He notes that the COVID-19 pandemic gave him time to work these out, and they are good enough that one wishes for more, perhaps one of
La bohème. As it is,
Rizzi offers Symphonic Suites "inspired by"
Madama Butterfly and
Tosca. They are far enough from the originals that the qualifier is needed;
Rizzi puts things together that are not together in the original scores. Annotator
Roger Parker notes that "[i]n the case of the
Tosca suite, the kinship between Angelotti's music and that accompanying the torture of Cavaradossi is made musically manifest." The two suites flow musically in ways natural enough that one might think they had been done by
Puccini or one of his associates a century ago. Some big tunes are there, but much of the emphasis is placed on
Puccini's orchestration, which is thrown into relief, so to speak, in this context. The two orchestral works, performed in new editions by
Rizzi, are of interest as well. There are two versions of the
Preludio Sinfonico of 1882, of which
Puccini thought enough to revise it later, and
Puccini's graduation piece, the
Capriccio Sinfonico, with its striking anticipation of
La bohème, is worth fresh performances. The
Welsh National Opera Orchestra is inspired to deliver very fine string playing here, whether by
Rizzi, the importance of the project, or, most likely, both. An essential find for
Puccini lovers. ~ James Manheim
