Episode 359. Get to Know Hugo Hasslo
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The earliest selection on last week’s Elisabeth Söderström episode featured the soprano at 24 singing the title role of Madama Butterfly. In that live recording, we also heard as Sharpless her compatriot the baritone Hugo Hasslo, to whom I introduced my listeners last fall. Today I dive a little bit deeper into Hasslo’s extant recordings. Considering what a great singer he was, and how his reputation has merely grown with the passage of time, it’s shocking how rarely Hasslo recorded in the studio. Therefore the majority of this episode consists of live recordings, from as far back as Hasslo’s operatic debut in 1940 as Guglielmo under the baton of Fritz Busch, through to his performance as di Luna alongside Jussi Björling’s final operatic appearance in Sweden twenty years later. Along the way we hear excerpts from Rigoletto, Il tabarro, Yevgeny Onegin (or should I say Eugen Onegin), Il trovatore, and… Porgy and Bess (?!?!). I also include a sample of the singing of Hasslo’s teacher, the Scottish tenor Joseph Hislop to show that the apple did not fall far from the tree! Other singers appearing on the episode include Sena Jurinac, Einar Andersson, Sigurd Björling, Eric Sædén, Margareta Hallin, Arne Tyrén, Aase Nordmo Løvberg, Apollo Granforte, and a surprise visit from last week’s subject, the transcendent Elisabeth Söderström.
RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE
Ruggero Leoncavallo: Un nido di memorie (Pagliacci) [sung in Swedish]. Hugo Hasslo, Sten Frykberg, Swedish Radio Orchestra [1949]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Lorenzo da Ponte: La mia Dorabella… È la fede delle femmine… Una bella serenata (Così fan tutte). Hugo Hasslo, Einar Andersson, Sigurd Björling, Fritz Busch, Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra [live Stockholm 30.III.40]
Giuseppe Verdi, Francesco Maria Piave, Antonio Ghislanzoni [after Ángel de Saavedra]: Solenne in quest’ora (La forza del destino). Joseph Hislop, Apollo Granforte, Orchestra conducted by George W. Byng [1926]
George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward, Ira Gershwin, Styrbjörn Lindedal [Swedish translation]: A Woman Is a Sometime Thing (Porgy and Bess). Hugo Hasslo, Sten Frykberg, Radiotjänsts Underhållningsorkester [live 05.I.47]
Giuseppe Verdi, Salvadore Cammarano [after Antonio García Gutiérrez]: Tutto è deserto… Il balen del suo sorriso… Per me ora fatale (Il trovatore). Hugo Hasslo, Eric Sædén, Herbert Sandberg, Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera, Stockholm [live Stockholm 06.III.60]
Giuseppe Verdi, Salvadore Cammarano [after Antonio García Gutiérrez]: Udiste? Come albeggi, la scure al figlio… Mira, d’acerbe lagrime… Vivrà! Contende il giubilo (Il trovatore). Hugo Hasslo, Aase Nordmo Løvberg, Herbert Sandberg, Orchestra of the Royal Opera, Stockholm [live Stockholm 26.I.57]
Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Adami [after Didier Gold]: Come è difficile esser felici!… Erano sere come queste (Il tabarro) [sung in Swedish]. Hugo Hasslo, Elisabeth Söderström, Nils Grevillius, Stockholms Filharmoniska Orkester [1956 television production]
Giuseppe Verdi, Francesco Maria Piave [after Victor Hugo]: Quel vecchio maledivami… Pari siamo… Figlia! Mio padre!… Deh, non parlare al misero… Ah, veglia, o donna (Rigoletto). Hugo Hasslo, Margareta Hallin, Arne Tyrén, Sixten Ehrling, Orchestra of the Royal Opera, Stockholm [live 18.I.59]
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky [after Alexander Pushkin]: O Himmel! Es scheint mein Flehen ihren Zorn zu wecken (Eugen Onegin) [sung in German]. Hugo Hasslo, Sena Jurinac, Wilhelm Schüchter, Sinfonieorchester des NDR [live Hamburg 11.IX.52]
Wilhelm Stenhammar, Bo Bergman: Stjärnöga [Starry Eyes] (Fem sånger av Bo Bergman, Op. 20-1). Hugo Hasslo, Stig Westerberg, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra [live 09.XII.59]
