The first of these two CDs enshrines the golden youth of Gigli, and therefore some of the most beautiful tenor sounds ever committed to disc. Listen to the three extracts from La Gioconda – the Act 1 encounter with Barnaba, ‘Cielo e mar’ and the love duet with Laura made at the first sessions in Milan in 1918 – and imagine yourself with the audiences when the singer had one of his earliest successes as Enzo; also enjoy the honeyed, mellifluous timbre, the homogeneous tone, the fluid delivery, the enthusiastic attack that must have enthralled Gigli’s contemporaries. The ease and naturalness of the sound still have the power to amaze the ear, as they do in such a dreamy, sweet account of ‘Apri la tua finestra’ from Mascagni’s Iris. Then in ‘Spirto gentil’ (La favorita), the subtle, suave way Gigli moves into the reprise has surely never been equalled, let alone surpassed.
Pieces that he repeated later – the arias of Cavaradossi and Faust, the Act 1 duet from La boheme, for instance – are here done with fewer of the maddening if endearing traits that informed the later recordings. Faust was not yet in his repertory, but the aria and even more the Garden Duet with the estimable Maria Zamboni are filled with the kind of immediate, open-hearted passion that is the hallmark of all Gigli’s records. A pity he has such an acid-toned partner in the Cherry Duet from L’amico Fritz because he is perfectly suited by the role of the shy Korbus, appealing in the most delicate voice to his Suzel.
Six tracks into the second disc we are carried forward 12 years to 1931, when Gigli returned to HMV from his fruitful spell with Victor, chronicled on Romophone. This is the fully-fledged Gigli with which collectors will be most familiar, the voice more mature, the style a deal coarsened. Yet who can resist Tosti’s Addio or Sullivan’s The Lost Chord (conducted by Barbirolli), both sung in delightfully accented English, or even his outrageously self-indulgent account of the Dream from Manon, in Italian?
The 1931 coupling of the arias from Faust and La boheme must have been Gigli’s best-selling operatic 78s: both pieces are sung in score pitch, the tenor’s high C now firmly in place. Neither reading is a model of style, but both are emotionally overwhelming, the boyish charm, use of portamento and verbal detailing of his Rodolfo especially winning. In a famous account of the Cavalleria duet, he is partnered by an impassioned Giannini: both artists exhibit an authentic spinto style now severely in jeopardy. At the end come a wonderfully forthright account of ‘Cujus animam’ from Rossini’s Stabat mater (though he abjures the high D flat) and two soulful Neapolitan songs by de Curtis, perfect Gigli territory.
The transfers of the electrics are faultless; the sound of the acoustics, poor recordings in themselves, is less amenable.'