This is an unusual and important issue of material deriving from a strange source: in 1940 the New York Post issued a series of operatic excerpts obtainable through discount coupons. The resulting discs became known as the 'No Name' records. Wilfrid Pelletier, who masterminded the series, gave a boost to Warren whose fledgling career he was championing, by using him for many of the items with the excellent results heard here. He had just turned 29, had made his debut at the Metropolitan a year earlier, and was to be signed up by RCA a year later. The voice, sappy and fresh, is already fully formed and is heard to advantage as Tonio, Germont, Rigoletto and Amonasro, none of these assignments betraying a sign of the youthful baritone's inexperience. Quite the contrary: Warren has learnt his lessons well—for instance ''Un nido di memorie'' in the Pagliacci Prologue and ''Piangi, piangi, fanciulla'' in Rigoletto demonstrate a sensitively fashioned line and a firm and warm tone with an unforced top. As the recording here has greater depth and resonance than on his RCA 78s, we get a fairer picture of what Warren must have sounded like in the opera house at this period.
His partners are mostly in his class. Steber, his coeval, sings Violetta's music in the encounter with Giorgio Germont and the concertato in Act 2 scene 2, with the beauty and honest conviction that characterized all her work, even if the words don't mean that much to her. Warren's Aida in the ensemble of the Triumphal scene and the Act 3 duet is the more experienced Bampton, Pelletier's wife, who was then singing the part at the Met, and here gives us a glimpse of the quality of that interpretation. Is the unnamed tenor briefly heard in the ensemble Arthur Carron, the English tenor then singing Radames at the Met? The Duke in Rigoletto is the Armenian tenor Armand Tokatyan, also active in that house. He shows off his keen, Borgioli-like voice to best advantage when launching the Quartet. Jean Dickenson, the Gilda, is light-voiced, undistinguished. Pelletier conducts throughout with an innate feeling for pulse and drama, and seems to have an orchestra of no mean ability at his disposal. Altogether this is a disc that will give pleasure to the many admirers of Warren's art and to anyone interested in the high standard of singing then on hand in the USA, even for such an unlikely project as this.'