This performance is definitely for the experienced live opera collector rather than someone just beginning to learn the opera. Recorded outdoors at the 1972 Macerata Festival the sound is listenable with the soloists very clear, but is overall a little rough. Siepi, of course, makes a commanding Mefistofele, interpolating an extra low note, singing with abandon, but never out of control. He may have found the outdoors venue less than optimal (the end of "Ecco il mondo!" is a bit strained) and his voice isn't as steady as it was a decade earlier. Merighi is a good, is occasionally off-pitch, Faust. His high notes are very good though and the audience clearly likes him.Olivero gives a no-holds barred performance, based on her verismo experience rather than her early bel canto training. She lavishes her molten lava-like voice on the role in a way most contemporary audiences would find over the top. Yet her sincerity and commitment to the role are unquestionable and very moving. No wonder the audience explodes at the end of her "L'altra notte". Few singers today would allow themselves to become this raw and vulnerable in public.Vajna fluffs the top C in the Act Four ensemble and loses the pitch elsewhere probably because of the outdoors venue. She sings the role much better in the 1964 La Scala performance with Ghiaurov, Bergonzi, and Kabaivanska, also available from Opera Depot.Lovers of the opera or the singers will enjoy this; others have been forewarned!

Tassilo has right: the choir sounds sometimes like a local community chorus, the orchestra is not first-class, Merighi has not the authority of the best Fausts but...Santi conducts fantastic combining passion with poesy, Merighi has beautiful high tones, Siepi is excellent in one of his emlematic roles (I think he is the best in Rio de Janeiro also with Olivero) and no other soprano knows better this style than Olivero: she is simple unsettling and shocking in the final of the 3rd act. In short: great performance.

Dear Jim Martin i couldn’t agree more. This is a fantastic performance. It might be something for Olivero and Siepi’s fans that comment is acceptable, because the acustics, place, orchestra, chorus etc. are all but perfect…however, as for for Magda Olivero, she is the best in this role nothing possible to say agaist it I’m sorry. Pronunciation is perfect, technic is perfect, a memorable actress and well her sense of style is superb. As for the words “spoken”…they are not really spoken but produced with incredible artistry because this is verismo and it MUST pay tributo to the thatre also…but she had the luck of studying with the men that possessed all the original music sheets of these operas, where all variations accepter by composers are preserved, where everything is written. Don’t be fooled, she takes no liberty. And it should be time that we aks ourselves why verismo operas now are never emotional when so called singers who would better stick to “elisir d’amore” try to sing them…so this permormance is very precious. DRAMA is there, complitely. This is the way these operas must be sung. Olivero’s timbre might be a bit too mature for the role (previous recordings in Amsterdam and Rio de Janeiro show a complitely differen approach), but this is still coherent to the maximum degree.

I’m afraid I don’t agree with Mr. Martin’s assessment of this provincial Italian performance. Siepi rolls out some magnificent low notes, and he’s wonderfully alert in the more declamatory passages, but this stems from relatively late in his career, and there’s more wobble on sustained notes up top, especially under pressure, than I find congenial. Merighi’s basic instrument is rather attractive, and he makes some ringing sounds here and there, but he’s a bit on the unsubtle side and strays badly from pitch at a couple of points. In any case, he’s not the world’s most sensitive singer. This release may be for Olivero fans only: she was a very old lady when this performance took place, and I’m sorry to say she sounds it. Olivero fans won’t mind. Everybody else should steer clear. At least her performance is an interesting document of an old fashioned and terribly earnest early 20th-century verismo approach to the opera: for example, there’s plenty of very unusual Italianate Sprechstimme during Margherita’s mad moments before the Lontano duet. The orchestra is not first rate, and the boys’ and adult choruses both sound like the local community chorus from a small Italian town, singing lustily but none too cleanly. For me, the star of the show is Nello Santi, one of many unsung Italian conductors of Italian opera from the 2nd quarter of the 20th century. He leads with a Toscaninian vigor but never sounds rushed or unbreathing: he also strikes me as a more interesting conductor than Toscanini, and phrases magnificently. Kudos to the wonderful trumpet player responsible for the calls during the festivities in Act I, scene 1. The recorded sound is tolerable at best: I wouldn’t have bought this set if I’d heard it first.

This is a MUST HAVE for every serious opera lover. I have had this performance on various media (reel-to-reel, cassette, cd) since about 1974. The sound has always been aweful as so many outdoor theatre performances can be. I have always felt the performance was excellent, who can outdo Siepi as Mefistofeles? Merighi has a beautiful voice even though he has an annoying tendancy to sing flat in the bridge area. Vajna has a suitable voice for Elena (she badly misses the high C at the end of the ensemble, that aside, her performance is dramatic and riveting). The true star, however is the indomitable Olivero, the last great versimo singer. Having seen her live in this role as well as many others, her interpretations, even on cd, leave one spell-bound, they are unforgettable. The sound on this recording is amazing, it sounds as though it was transferred right from the original. The great performance coupled with the great sound makes this a “desert island” choice for all opera lovers who want the best of the best.