For a critique of this
performance please refer to my review
of the recent issue on the Naxos
Historical label elsewhere
on this site . In that review I
commented in some detail about the background
to the original recording. It was the
first issued, albeit the second recorded,
under Callas’s new contract for EMI’s
Columbia label. I also narrated my experience
of the recording going back to its initial
LP days and including its first appearance
on CD where I found the original excessive
reverberation and muddy orchestral and
choral textures little improved. To
my ears Mark Obert-Thorn’s re-mastering
for Naxos had made the performance easier
to listen to with the voices clearer,
lifted as it were, out of the muddy
background. I also noted the more open
orchestral sound of Act III against
that of Acts I and II. However, I didn’t
labour the issue that Obert-Thorn specifically
mentions as to the change in perspective
during CD 1 tr. 5 when, as he states,
‘Riccardo and Bruno seem to have been
transported to the bottom of Jokanaan’s
cistern’ (i.e. in Strauss’s Salome).
On the Naxos the restorer has smoothed
out some of these differences, which
are more obvious on the EMI issue with
its overall cleaner sound. Of course
EMI have the master tapes, and if they
have taken as much trouble as Obert
–Thorn in transcribing from LP copies,
then the consequences should be audible.
Listening to CD 1 tr. 11, ‘Ad Arturo
onore’ (the same track number on both
issues, although prefaced as ‘Scene
3’ on the EMI) the Naxos can do nothing
with the overloaded entrance of the
chorus, and EMI little better. Where
the latter does score is in the recording
of Callas’s voice as in Elvira’s ‘Vien,
diletto’, (CD 2 tr. 6; tr 7 on Naxos)
when the voice is caught to better advantage
... significantly better. There is more
of an impression of openness and the
singer’s tone sounds lighter and more
rounded. In the very hot seat of comparison
this is the crunch. Without the opportunity
of the present direct comparison I found
the Naxos more ‘listenable’ than the
earlier issues. Now, set side by side
with this EMI re-issue, at roughly the
same price, I find the Naxos has a marginally
more flattened aspect to the sound when
compared directly with the EMI. However,
the differences are slight. If you have
already purchased the Naxos I do not
think the differences justify having
two copies of such a generally mediocre
performance on your shelves, but if
you are a Callas addict then maybe!
Just to complicate matters the essay
by David Padmore for Naxos is superior
to that by the doyen J.B. Steane for
EMI; dated 1986 it was perhaps prepared
for the original CD issue. Likewise
the track-related synopsis on Naxos
is superior too.
The differences of
presentation and recording quality are
marginal. Rather than ‘caveat emptor’
it’s a case of ‘make your choice’. At
the price, if you want this performance
in your collection, you are a winner
whichever you decide.
Robert J Farr
Chorus and Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala, Milan/Tullio
Serafin 