Despite some scratchy acetate disc noise, this Trovatore is mostly in very listenable sound. Someone made the effort to make sure the pitch is correct and if the very tops of a few scenes are missing, I am grateful the sound is as good as it is (some of the Mexico City pirates are in much worse sound).Varnay sings Leonora very well, if without the delicacy and tonal beauty of some other sopranos. She ducks the written D-flat at the end of "Tacea la notte", but interpolates a huge one at the end of the first act (joined by Baum). Rather surprisingly, she interpolates a top C towards the end of the Miserere. Baum sings very passionately with his somewhat pinched tone. The audience loves his "Di quella pira". Warren sings Di Luna expertly, making his duet with Varnay one of the highlights of the performance. Heidt was a fine singer, but was evidently indisposed for this broadcast as she avoids all notes above G. That means the opera ends limply, but there we are. The obvious lack of rehearsal is evident in all the false entrances and flubbed cut-offs. One of the anvil players doesn't get the message and keeps banging away after the chorus is over. Picco does what he can to hold everything together, but sometimes it's just by a hair. But that's part of the fun of live recordings!

This is actually quite a good performance if you can listen through the scratchy surfaces of the acetate discs that were the original source. It's true Astrid Varnay seems miscast, as if she rode in from Valhalla to the gypsy camp and the di Luna estate, but she's in good vocal form and so is Leonard Warren. There have been a lot of nasty words written about tenor Kurt Baum -- that he was showy, exhibitionistic and just too loud -- but he's a fine, herolc Manrico and quite frankly I like him better than the unspeakably awful Mario Del Monaco. There have also been a lot of nasty words written about this performance's conductor, Guido Picco, but he's in fine form here, with clear ideas about making Verdi's music drama come alive and fully worthy of his cast (including Winifred Heidt as Azucena, who's on the same level as her better-known co-stars). Thank you for this fine performance, and I hope you can make the follow-up from two years later available, in which Baum and Warren returned and Maria Callas was Leonora.

Il faut rendre pleine justice à Heidt : si 2 aigus lui manquent elle compose un vrai personnage et réussit comme peu les gruppetti de Stride la vampa . Le volume semble considérable et elle est bien mieux que Wettergren en 39, à rapprocher de Lapeyrette et Elmo . Varnay étonne une fois de plus par la souplesse de ses vocalises et ses allègements surprenants . Warren formidable . Baum n'a pas gagné en charme vocal mais on comprend la carrière qui fut la sienne .

This sounds very intriguing indeed, especially with a chance to hear Warren again. As for Baum. . .well, power, yes; but beauty has never been a word that sprang readily to mind when confronted with his bellow. Well, perhaps I’ll be pleasantly surprised!