Though he had been heard on a few special imports from 1962, it was not until 1969, with the Sutherland/Decca Lakme, that Alain Vanzo appeared in the UK catalogues. His contributions to recordings of eight further French operas over the next decade were greeted with the highest praise by all critics, and his guest appearances at Covent Garden and Glyndebourne were similarly admired: yet even now he is less known in this country than he deserves to be; and this disc, issued for his sixty-second birthday (April 2nd), is much to be welcomed. From the disgracefully inadequate and shoddy presentation (which fails even to give proper details of what he offers—the above titles have been supplied by this magazine—doesn't identify other singers who make fleeting appearances, and considers that a couple of hundred words of empty flapdoodle about tenors of the past compensates for a total lack of any information about Vanzo himself) it would seem that these recordings may have been made in 1960. His voice was then in its prime: three years earlier he had created a sensation in Paris in Lucia di Lammermoor with Callas.
Until winning a singing competition in Cannes in 1954 Vanzo had gained valuable experience in the field of light music, where the mellifluous, easy production and exemplary enunciation he cultivated there were to stand him in good stead later. This period is evoked in the Neapolitan and popular Italian ballads included here (with a small, shallowly-recorded orchestra): sentimental in Catari, passionate in Torna Surriento, beguiling in Fa la nanna (with a beautifully floated high C). But it is in the operatic repertoire that his elegant lyrical tenor (though with metal when needed, as in ''Pourquoi me reveiller''), his refined phrasing, his tonal purity and his intelligence shine through—this despite reach-me-down recording that thrusts the voice too far forward (making him much too loud in the Lalo Aubade and, especially, ''Je crois entendre'') and leaves the second-rate orchestra without resonance. His performance of these arias is evidence of an unusually likeable artist: in particular, the honeyed tone and flexible fioriture of ''Ecco ridente'' are irresistible.'