EMI have done Werther proud over the years. The first complete recording (1931), conducted by Elie Cohen, with Georges Thill and Ninon Vallin (now on Naxos), was eventually succeeded by this 1968 set, which caused quite a stir when it was first issued. (The opera was still quite a rarity then; its modern popularity dates from a few years later, with Paul-Emile Deiber’s Met production.) Since then, Plasson (2/80) and Pappano (A/99) have provided different views.

Neither Nicolai Gedda nor Victoria de los Angeles had sung their roles on stage before. Both subsequently appeared in productions, Gedda in the US, and de los Angeles in Spain and Argentina, but never together. The recording as a whole is excellent; Prêtre’s way with the piece is expansive – never driving it too hard, and savouring the details of Massenet’s depiction of the rural setting in Act 1. Gedda seems rather too close to the microphone at moments. ‘O nature’ is sung with full, ardent tone. ‘Lorsque l’enfant’, really the heart of the role, lacks the subtlety of Domingo’s soft singing in a 1977 live recording from Munich (Orfeo, 12/98).

This was Victoria de los Angeles’s final complete opera recording. Her voice was still capable of heart-catching tiny effects, sometimes using an almost instrumental vibrato-less tone. In general I prefer a mezzo (Fassbaender, Troyanos) in this part, but there is a wealth of detail in De los Angeles’s characterisation. She sounds a little bit too emotional and tragic right from the start, but then this is all to her advantage in ‘Va laisse couler mes larmes’, and this is one of the finest recordings of the aria. Mady Mesplé is ideally cast as Sophie, and Roger Soyer brings firm resolve to that dullest of parts, poor old Albert.

This set will always hold a special place in the Massenet discography, but it has to be said that although De los Angeles and Gedda had been the ideal Manon and Des Grieux in the 1950s and early ’60s, they never achieved quite the same identification with this later work.