Falstaff

This is a reissue of the very first complete recording of Verdi's Falstaff, made in 1932 at La Scala and featuring some of the finest Verdian singers of the time, all melded into a brilliant ensemble by veteran La Scala conductor, Lorenzo Molajoli. The performance is lively and touching. The second disc is filled out by an additional 35 minutes of aria recordings by soprano Pia Tassinari, made mostly in the early 1940s. They, too, are in quite good sound.

Be warned that there is no libretto with this issue. Obviously for this reason this should not be anyone's only recording of this comic masterpiece. There is a very thorough synopsis with index numbers for the discs and this makes it fairly easy to follow developments in the story-line.

This performance has been issued on various labels over the years, but this issue has the best sound and is, in a word, amazing. The sound restoration was done by that engineering wizard, Ward Marston, whose work has been a boon to all lovers of historic recordings.

The performance here is OK, no mean praise for such a sophisticated opera, but it is no more than just OK.

I have no doubt that the Naxos wizards have markedly improved the sound from the original 78s, but the sound is still wretchedly inadequate to represent this most subtle and ingenious of all Verdi's scores.

If you have a taste for a historic performance that is truly extraordinary, seek out either the Toscanini version with Valdengo or the Karajan version with Gobbi. Both are better performances in every aspect and offer vastly better sound reproduction.

"Falstaff" is not very long, so Disk 2 of this set is filled out with 35 minutes devoted to soprano Pia Tassinari. Tassinari was one of the brightest of the generation of Italian singers whose careers centered on the years of World War II. In 1941 she married tenor Feruccio Tagliavini, with whom she made many recordings. She was always a fine, heavy-voiced soprano. At the end of her peforming career she shifted to mezzo roles, including a recording of Ulrica in "Ballo in maschera."

She sings items from Mozart, Wagner, Massenet, Mascagni and Puccini. That she sings the latter three very well is no surprise at all. That she even attempted the first two is unexpected. That she did it so well is astounding. Pia Tassinari: the unanticipated Compleat Prima Donna.