Jules Massenet, Lorin Maazel, Beverly Sills, Nicolai Gedda, New Philharmonia Orchestra, John Alldis Choir, Sherrill Milnes, Norma Burrowes - Massenet: ThaA¯s / Sills, Milnes, Gedda; Maazel

This set is primarily for devoted fans of Beverly Sills, for fans of Sherrill Milnes in his prime, and for those who must have the uncut version where it's available. The estimable Ms. Sills was in less than ideal voice for the making of this recording, which is unfortunate, but the artistry still shines through. Mr. Milnes sings with rich tone. But Lorin Maazel's conducting is leaden and out of empathy with the score. --Sarah Bryan Miller Amazon.com

Stunning

I have this recording on LP from the 70's but I had forgotten what beautiful music is in this opera.I was stunned when I heard the CD here. There is little not to like, especially the wonderful singing of Miss Sills and Mr. Milnes. One wonders why Miss Sills did not sing this role more in her career as she had been coached in the role by the best. The voice yes, is some what darker but still in fine shape. All 3 principals seem very much at home in this repetiore. The orchestra is very fine. Great all around to my ears. June 15, 2008

Sills still in great voice

I am amazed that every reviewer of anything by Sills wants to repeat the age old opinion that the voice was in shreds by the time of her retirement from the stage. This is just not true. I bought and listened to a compilation of live performances called Sillsiana which includes extended excerpts from Lucrizia Borgia, her very last new role at City Center. I was amazed how good the singing really was. Yes the role may have been a bit heavy for how light Sill's voice really was, but heck how many lyric sopranos insist on singing Butterfly or Tosca.

I recently re listened to this recording which was pretty much damned with faint praise when it was first released. Flemming is a wonderful singer, careful in everything she does. Her's is a lyric instrument which gives a nice weight to this role and she sings it beautifully. Sill's voice was perhaps a little light for Thais, but she wanted to sing it with every fiber of her being, and she tears into it, and wow if I were not gay, I sure might give up everything I have to be with this woman. She is sexually alluring, voluptuous of voice and she just draws you in.

Sills could have made a nice, if not particularly exciting career singing Donna Anna, Costanza (ocasionally), Susanna and other soubrette roles. Sills, the person was a strong woman who wanted more, and she shared it with us. We had 20 years leading up to Julius Ceasar and then 15 more very exciting years of Beverly singing whatever she wanted. I was fortunate to have gotten to see many of those roles live, and they were not to be forgotten. Ok, you shortened your career to reach just a little beyond yourself. Thank you for that.

DO NOT BE AFRAID TO BUY LATE RECORDINGS BY SILLS. The voice was only in shreds compared to the exalted standards of earlier Sills and Sutherland who was active at the same time. June 7, 2008

Lapsing Faith and Lost Beauty

The reason I assign the recording four stars rather than five is that the pathos of the opera strikes me as too extreme. The same combination of exquisite beauty and suffocating pathos turns up in Barbra Streisand's song "The Way we Were." Beverly Sills sings the pathetic part of Thais to the hilt; and Massenet's familiar "religious meditation" does the rest. All of these intensely pathetic operas including Pagliacci and Tosca derive from the epoch-making example of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde with its unrelieved love-and-death sorrow. As a Christian I associate this powerful tradition with lapsing faith in Europe after 1865. Massenet's opera treats the early Christian monks of Egypt as caught up in tragic error. Thais is a supremely beautiful woman won from a life of immorality to Christianity by a well-intentioned monk who knew her in his earlier days. As the converted Thais lives and dies for the abstract reward of heaven, the monk grieves over the beauty he has destroyed. The real spiritual solution to the dilemma posed by the opera lies in the correlation between future resurrection, universal vitality and intense beauty; but theologians have generally missed he point and shown more interest in heaven than in concrete resurrection. In any case there was no way out for Massenet and his source. September 23, 2006

Stylish Thais Set

This 1976 recording of Thais is my favorite of the two recordings I have - the other being the Fleming/Hampson. Sills' vibrato is a little more pronounced here than it was a few years earlier, but it doesn't bother me. She still has a gorgeous voice and brings this conflicted character vividly to life. Having studied with the likes of Mary Garden as a young singer, Sills has an innate understanding of the French style, and uses her voice with much imagination and flair. Also, the character of Thais is not supposed to be a young girl - an aging courtesan of 30ish or so... Sherrill Milnes, in a departure from his usual Italian repertoire, sings a most impassiaoned Athaneal - the voice full and resonant, the character's obessiveness wonderfully realized. I think he never did anything better on disc. Nicolai Gedda is a little past his best here, but like Sills understands the French style and delivers the vocal goods as required. Maazel conducts an exciting performance (even playing the solo violin in the Meditation himself) and the sound is excellent. The Fleming/Hampson set is beautifully sung, but I feel the drama of the story is not fully realized somehow - hard to put my finger on what's missing there. This Thais is one of my favorite French opera recordings - recommended highly. October 15, 2005

AN UNDER-APPRECIATED GEM

Late 19th-century French opera is often disparaged these days, which isn't really fair. Delibes had some beautiful melodies, and Massenet was a much better composer than many give him credit for. And although "Manon" and "Werther" may be more famous, to me, his late opera "Thais" is his masterpiece. There are three major recordings of this opera, one with Anna Moffo, Gabriel Bacquier and Jose Carreras, a recent one with Renee Fleming, Thomas Hampson and Giuseppe Sabattini, and this 1976 recording with Beverly Sills, Sherill Milnes, and Nicolai Gedda. All three versions have their strengths and weaknesses. The Moffo/Bacquier vesion, although excellent and showing Carreras in his prime, is unavailable. (I'm not sure it was ever issued in CD.) The Fleming/Hampson recording is also excellent--Fleming has a gorgeous and luscious voice, and Hampson a silky smooth baritone--but I find myself reaching for the Sills/Milnes version most often.
Sills was past her prime when she recorded this, and her high notes are a little thin and sometimes wobbly. Nevertheless, her artistry is so great that she infuses the role of the courtesan with the tremendous drama the role requires. Thais' radical change of character, from the insouciant hedonist to the redeemed penitent, is gloriously demonstrated in Sills' portrayal.
And this opera is as much about Athanael as it is Thais. Milnes, at the height of his career when he recorded this in 1976, brings tremendous power and vitality to the role of the priest, whose reverse progression from moralistic religious surety to tortured doubt parallels that of Thais, the object of his forbidden love. Nicolai Gedda's singing is, as always, stylish and graceful, and Loren Maazel's reading of the score is well paced and forceful. This recording belongs in all opera collections. December 2, 2004

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