Writing at the dawn of the recording era, Puccini was one of the first opera composers whose earliest interpreters were immortalised on disc. A lover of new technologies, such as motor cars and speedboats, he was less than polite about the gramophone – or the grafofono (‘scratchophone’), as he dismissively referred to it; but he was commercially canny enough to compose arias that were short enough to fit on a single side of a 12-inch 78rpm disc. These had been introduced by the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1903, extending the medium’s playing time to about four and a half minutes.

Star tenor Enrico Caruso was one of Puccini’s friends and collaborators, and he made hundreds of recordings. Among other singers who premiered Puccini roles, we can listen to sopranos Emmy Destinn, Geraldine Farrar and Claudia Muzio, tenor Tito Schipa and baritone Giuseppe De Luca. Through the snap, crackle and pop of early acoustic recordings come voices that resonate with authenticity and whose interpretations would have been familiar to the composer.

We can even hear the master’s voice itself. In New York in February 1907, Puccini recorded a brief message (in Italian) for the Columbia Phonograph Company: ‘I am really deeply grateful to the great public of New York for the very enthusiastic welcome they have given my operas. I accept your wishes for a safe journey and conclude by cheering: America forever!’ (an allusion to Pinkerton’s salutation in Madama Butterfly).

For the centenary of the composer’s death, I’ve selected 10 singers, from Puccini’s own era to the present day, who represent the greatest in Puccini-singing on record. Inevitably, given their predominance in his operas, the focus is on sopranos and tenors, although one baritone makes a cameo appearance.

Enrico Caruso (1873-1921)

One has to start with Caruso, an early king of the gramophone, something which, in turn, made him a household name around the globe. Fully embracing the new technology, he made at least 260 recordings for Victor between 1904 and 1920 (earning himself huge royalties into the bargain).

Caruso’s vocal acting made him an ideal Puccini interpreter; there are sobs in ‘E lucevan le stelle’ (Tosca) and a real sense of regret in Pinkerton’s ‘Addio, fiorito asil’. Caruso was essentially a stylish lyric tenor, who could float a high note beautifully, although his baritonal colouring gave his sound a darker hue, particularly during his final decade. Indeed, those darker colours can be heard in Colline’s Coat Aria from La bohème, recorded not as a stunt but recalling a real-life situation in a Philadelphia performance where the bass suddenly lost his voice in Act 4 and Caruso covered for him.

Caruso created the role of Dick Johnson (aka the ‘bandit’ Ramerrez) opposite Emmy Destinn’s Minnie in Puccini’s spaghetti western La fanciulla del West, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in 1910. Sadly, we cannot hear him sing Johnson’s aria ‘Ch’ella mi creda’ – Ricordi, Puccini’s publisher, refused permission for Caruso to record it, fearing it would be detrimental to sales of the vocal score!

Featured recording

‘Enrico Caruso: The Complete Victor Recordings’

(RCA Red Seal, 11 CDs)

Claudia Muzio (1889-1936)

One of Caruso’s frequent partners was Claudia Muzio, a leading Italian soprano of the first half of the 20th century. She made her first recording in 1911, which included ‘Mi chiamano Mimì’, sounding suitably youthful if technically insecure.

Like Caruso, Muzio was an affecting vocal actor. She could display dignity and depth of feeling with a voice that encompassed a huge expressive range. Tenor Giacomo Lauri-Volpi described Muzio as ‘singing with that unique voice of hers made of tears and sighs and restrained interior fire’. In 1918 at the Metropolitan Opera, she created the role of Giorgetta in Il tabarro, the first panel in Puccini’s great triptych, Il trittico.

After the Great War, Muzio fell out of favour at the Met and spent much of her time performing at the Lyric Opera of Chicago – this was reportedly her best decade (1922-32), but not one that yielded any recordings, alas.

Either side of this, we have records made by Pathé in 1917-18, including Butterfly’s notoriously difficult entrance music, and a collection of arias and songs made for Columbia – financed by Muzio herself – mostly from June 1935, a year before her untimely death. These Columbia recordings reveal a remarkable artist, a little past her best but alive to the text, notably in a tremendous ‘Vissi d’arte’ (Tosca).

Featured recording

‘Lebendige Vergangenheit: Claudia Muzio’

(Preiser)

Beniamino Gigli (1890-1957)

After Caruso’s death in 1921, the Italian who stepped into his tenorial shoes was Beniamino Gigli – audiences even referred to him as ‘Caruso secondo’, although the singer understandably preferred the moniker ‘Gigli primo’. He had a beautiful, honeyed tenor voice, making him perfect for a role like the poet Rodolfo in La bohème.

HMV’s artistic director Fred Gaisberg related in these pages (6/38) how the announcement of a complete recording of La bohème with Gigli led to the company being inundated with requests from other singers who wished to participate, such was the respect with which Gigli was accorded. Licia Albanese sang Mimì. Gaisberg speculates that this Bohème was the first Italian opera to be recorded electrically with a completely Italian cast. His article pays wonderful tribute to the tenor and his qualities of humour and generosity.

Gigli was occasionally criticised for over-emoting, a quality that actually makes his Rodolfo a real flesh-and-blood character – just listen to his breakdown in the closing pages of the opera on this recording and it’s difficult to hold back the tears yourself.

Featured recording

La bohème

La Scala / Umberto Berrettoni

(HMV)

Tito Gobbi (1913-84)

Even when he was in his prime, Tito Gobbi’s dry baritone was never a particularly beautiful instrument, but his sharp dramatic instincts and the way he coloured words made him ideal for Puccini roles like Baron Scarpia in Tosca, which he sang – according to his autobiography – nearly a thousand times. Gobbi was a magnetic actor; a quizzical, raised eyebrow spoke volumes.

He twice recorded the suave but sinister Chief of Police with Maria Callas, but it’s his dual roles in HMV’s Il trittico from Rome (released separately, initially, each with a different conductor) that I’d pick out as essential listening. His brooding Michele in the 1955 Il tabarro offers a finely etched portrait of the barge owner tortured by his suspicions that his wife is having an affair, leading to an explosive denouement. In terms of his Puccinian ancestry, Gobbi studied with the tenor Giulio Crimi, who created the role of Luigi, the stevedore whom Michele’s wife has fallen for.

Then there’s a complete switch of mood in 1958 for Gobbi’s roguish Gianni Schicchi, the trickster who swindles a fortune from the grasping relatives of the deceased Buoso Donati. Gobbi studied the role with librettist Giovacchino Forzano, who insisted (as related by Gobbi in his 1984 book on Italian opera), ‘Our work must be serious. It is for the other people to laugh and enjoy it.’ Gobbi’s word-painting is an acting masterclass, his affected voice impersonating Buoso is very funny. He wrote: ‘How I always enjoyed the dictation of that will, with its thousand colours, inflections and accents! I could, as the saying goes, have died with laughter instead of just impersonating that corpse.’

Featured recording

Il trittico

Rome Opera / Vincenzo Bellezza

(HMV)

Renata Tebaldi (1922-2004)

This will get me into hot water but, entering the 1950s, I’m selecting soprano Renata Tebaldi over Maria Callas. Yes, there’s that famed 1953 Tosca, but Callas was less associated with Puccini than she was with the bel canto repertoire, and although she recorded several Puccini operas, she didn’t perform many of them on stage regularly.

Tebaldi was far more the Puccini diva. She had a beautiful voice – Toscanini called it ‘the voice of an angel’ – and she could sculpt long, luscious phrases that would soar through roles such as La bohème’s Mimì, Cio-Cio-San (Madama Butterfly) and Liù (Turandot), all of which she recorded multiple times. But it’s Tebaldi’s Tosca that I would recommend most highly. It was her most-performed role (167 stage performances), and she opened the famous Margarethe Wallmann production at the Wiener Staatsoper in 1958 which is still playing to this day.

The Tosca recording to head for would be the later one with Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, which was my Gramophone Collection top choice (8/22). Tebaldi is just terrific here. There’s steel in her commanding the artist Cavaradossi to paint the Madonna’s eyes black, and she delivers a voluptuous ‘Vissi d’arte’ praised by Philip Hope-Wallace (2/60) as ‘some of the most beautiful singing she has ever committed to record’.

Featured recording

Tosca

Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia / Francesco Molinari-Pradelli

(Decca)

Mirella Freni (1935-2020) / Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007)

Two for the price of one: both born in Modena in 1935, soprano Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti were childhood friends (their mothers worked in the same cigar factory) who went on to share the same operatic stage countless times throughout their long careers. The young Freni had a fresh, appealing soprano tone, Pavarotti’s tenor was vocal sunshine – a dream team.

Of their Puccini recordings together, the Tosca under Nicola Rescigno is better heard for Pavarotti’s Cavaradossi than for Freni’s sometimes overparted diva, and the Manon Lescaut came too late for both of them, recorded in 1992 (go to Freni’s earlier DG account conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli instead). Their best Puccini work together on record came in 1974 under the strict baton of Herbert von Karajan. This Madama Butterfly is possibly the most beautiful account set down on disc, Freni scrupulous in her attention to detail, Pavarotti almost – almost! – making Pinkerton likeable.

Ultimately, the even earlier La bohème is the one to turn to, where the first meeting of Mimì and Rodolfo is unbelievably tender: Freni really is the girl next door, her soprano dewy fresh; Pavarotti is an ardent poet, a twinkle in his eye. Here are young lovers you can believe in.

Featured recording

La bohème

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Herbert von Karajan

(Decca)

Renata Scotto (1934-2023)

Renata Scotto, who died in August 2023, followed in the footsteps of the ‘other’ Renata as a Puccinian of the very highest pedigree. Her voice wasn’t perhaps as stunningly beautiful as Tebaldi’s – indeed, her high notes could sour under pressure – but her detailed characterisations and dramatic investment in each character resulted in some of the most committed Puccini performances captured on record.

Warned off singing verismo roles like Manon Lescaut too early, Scotto dedicated herself to presenting them with fidelity to the score. As she wrote in her autobiography More than a Diva (1984), ‘Much verismo had a bad reputation as I was learning it, and I have felt compelled throughout my career to rediscover it and display it in a clean, bright light.’

Scotto’s Puccini legacy is outstanding, including valuable recordings of early operas Le Villi and Edgar. Her favourite Puccini role was Cio-Cio-San, and she recorded Madama Butterfly twice; the early one with Sir John Barbirolli is rightly revered, though Scotto herself preferred the later one, with Lorin Maazel (1978). ‘If I prefer the second recording it is probably because I can hear the difference that having children made to my interpretation.’

Regarding motherhood, my Scotto Puccini recording of note would have to be Suor Angelica (also with Maazel), which is utterly devastating from ‘Senza mamma’ right to the closing pages where the dying nun sees a vision of the Virgin Mary appear with Angelica’s son. Hankies at the ready.

Featured recording

Suor Angelica

New Philharmonia Orchestra / Lorin Maazel

(Sony)

Plácido Domingo (b1941)

Right from the start of his incredibly long career, the Spanish tenor has always been associated with Puccini. I remember a 1989 album of songs, including several premiere recordings, where Domingo even appeared on the cover dressed as the composer – white linen suit, neat moustache, straw boater. Very dapper.

Yet ‘dapper’ is not really the word for Domingo’s Puccini. He has always been a singer who invests plenty of drama into his performances, making him a neat counterfoil to the sunnier Pavarotti. A charismatic actor, he fully becomes these characters, both on stage and on screen … it’s surely no coincidence that he was chosen to play Pinkerton in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s film of Madama Butterfly, replacing Pavarotti in the Karajan cast that had been recorded for a Decca LP set earlier that same year (1974).

With his rugged baritonal sound, not always at ease in his top notes, Domingo is best-suited to the darker, sweatier roles: Luigi in Il tabarro and, especially, Dick Johnson in La fanciulla del West. He recorded the latter with Carol Neblett as Minnie and his great pal Sherrill Milnes as snarling sheriff Jack Rance. There’s a swagger to Domingo’s dashing bandit which is hugely appealing, and conducted with verve by Zubin Mehta, there’s never been a better version on disc.

Featured recording

La fanciulla del West

Royal Opera House / Zubin Mehta

(DG)

Jonathan Tetelman (b1988)

For a present-day Puccinian, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend tenor Jonathan Tetelman. I first saw the Chilean-American in 2018 as Rodolfo in Jonathan Miller’s cinematic production of La bohème for English National Opera. Post-pandemic, he made a great impression when I saw him perform Cavaradossi in Martin Ku≈ej’s highly controversial new Tosca in Vienna (now available on DVD), and I was bowled over by both of his recital albums for DG, the second of which – happily for this article – is devoted to Puccini.

Tetelman has a golden tone – not unlike Pavarotti – with a bright, open sound and splendid Italian diction, and his high notes ring out thrillingly. There’s easy charm to his Ruggero (La rondine), sincerity to his Rodolfo and steel to his Luigi (Tabarro). With chiselled good looks, Tetelman is a casting director’s dream. This album is essentially a calling card to opera house intendants: ‘Hire me!’

Featured recording

The Great Puccini

(DG)

This article originally appeared in the September 2024 issue of Gramophone. Whether you want to enjoy Gramophone online, explore our unique Reviews Database or our huge archive of issues stretching back to April 1923, or simply receive the magazine through your door every month, we've got the perfect subscription for you. Find out more at magsubscriptions.com