“La danza”

August–November 1937: Stockholm

Svensk Filmindustri Orchestra, cond. Nils Grevillius

Bluebell ABCD 092

December 8, 1940: Detroit, Masonic Temple Auditorium

Ford Symphony Orchestra, cond. Eugene Ormandy

VAIA 1189

Rossini played a central role in Björling's early career. The tenor was applauded in eleven performances as Arnold in Guillaume Tell (one of the most challenging parts in the standard repertoire) and scored a big success as Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia, which he performed twenty-six times between 1931 and 1937. It is a pity that he was never recorded in “Ecco ridente in cielo,” which he embellished with an interpolated top C (replacing the written E of “mio”), for it would have shown off the coloratura singing in which he considered himself a virtuoso at that time. His friend Gösta Kjellertz described Björling's florid divisions as being comparable to those of “violinists or pianists with great technical ability. You heard every note in his scales. … Everything sat perfectly for him and he did it with the greatest ease.”

Björling also played the part of Rossini, opposite Helga Görlin as Isabella Colbran, in Bernhard Paumgartner's Rossini in Neapel, a lightweight work that received its Swedish premiere in Stockholm in November 1936 and incorporates the Italian composer's famous tarantella, “La Danza” (composed to a text by Carlo Pepoli in the early 1830s). Although the melody of this rhythmically infectious song is relatively unembellished, it does require a brilliantly focused emission and the ability to articulate words and notes with great rapidity.