Goose-pimples throughout: magical opera: adorable performance. If that is too telegraphic an account, it still says what matters most. The recording, dating back to 1962, remains young in character. Thomas Schippers, not much over 30, won all hearts in those days. Freni was still in her twenties; Gedda, though ten years older, was very much a tenor in the prime of life. Some of the resident Italians sound like old hands at it and hardly rise to the occasion with buoyancy, but the players do. There is that lovely feeling of an orchestra who could play the score in its sleep but is actually doing a wideawake job as though living it all afresh. And essentially this is what the recording does for the listener also.
There is nothing apparently preconceived about it, as there is about both Karajan (Decca) and Beecham (EMI), whose famous versions come to mind first for comparisons. Instead, it is a responsive, spontaneous performance, that goes along with the music, discovering all sorts of delights on the way. Besides, Freni's lyrical purity is better suited here than her more mature self (lovely as that was too) of ten years later with Karajan, and Gedda makes Rodolfo a so much more lively, impulsive fellow than did either Pavarotti (Karajan) or Bjorling (Beecham): his sound is so full of happiness in the first two acts that one is genuinely upset (as on behalf of a good-natured friend) to find him so down-at-the-mouth and peevish in Act 3. It is a pity he hasn't a more animated Marcello in Mario Sereni, who nevertheless sings well enough, while rather the reverse is true of the Musetta, good at characterization, less so at the singing. Victor Olof's production works well, as the goose-pimples attest.'