Solti's is an exceptionally colourful and robust reading of Puccini's great melodrama, recorded with all the vividness of modern digital sound, featuring a heroine whose star quality today is unquestionable. Solti's special qualities emerge immediately in the weight of the opening and then equally in the sharp contrast, when after the Angelotti episode the Sacristan's music enters with a delectable spiky lightness, with dotted rhythms crisply pointed. Neither here nor in the rest of the performance does Solti adopt an unsympathetically fierce manner. Rarely has he phrased Italian melody so consistently con amore. The only pity is that the violins of the National Philharmonic are not always so sweet as those of Karajan's Berlin Philharmonic on DG, partly a question of more immediate recording.
One might even say that Solti's reading abetted by his principal soloists, lacks some of the biting anger of the piece, the quality which Karajan, above all, brought out, not least in his inpired choice of Ruggero Raimondi as Scarpia. The team of Sabata, Callas and Gobbi on HMV presents that element too with an intensity never likely to be equalled either. It is partly a question of Solti's timing, not so much in basic speeds as in pauses over transitions. So in Act 1 the jolly junketing led by the Sacristan has its 6/8 rhythms rushed a little, and then Scarpia's entry is presented with tremendous weight but with too little menace. That is largely a question of fractionally too short a pause before Nucci sings his first phrase; also of his actual delivery, strong but not very characterful, where Raimondi for Karajan conveys hushed horror as though drawing in his breath and Gobbi provides a unique snarl, at once in command. The Te Deum at the end of the act too finds Nucci vehement rather than sinister, with Solti treating the crotchet triplets not so menacing (as in Karajan's pendulum swing) but sweetly lyrical as in the Tosca music earlier. One might argue that Scarpia is still thinking of Tosca, but the spine-chilling impact of Karajan at this point, even though Raimondi is backwardly placed, seems to me to be more what Puccini intended. Nucci is at his finest in Scarpia's great solo of Act 2, the so-called 'Cantabile', where power and bite combine.
Though the casting of Dame Kiri as Tosca may be unexpected, it brings much powerful and moving singing. She is plainly more attuned to this role than she was at Covent Garden as Manon Lescaut, and there is something of the mature warmth here that illustrated her rendering of the role of Magda on Maazel's CBS set of La rondine. What I rather miss is any feeling of biting jealousy. So her response to Scarpia on being shown the fan, ''E L'Attavanti!'', has no snarl of anger in it, though later she conveys real pain in her half-tones as Scarpia's poison begins to work, and she expands superbly when she claims that God will forgive her, when He sees she is weeping. In Act 2 ''Vissi d'arte'' is finely shaded, but not so delicately as by Caballe on Davis's Philips set, not with the meditative mystery that Ricciarelli (less surely controlled vocally) brings to Karajan. Ricciarelli actually makes an asset out of her vocal problems, conveying more than the others a moving element of vulnerability. With Dame Kiri I miss the sort of phrasing in a chest register which makes Maria Callas so unforgettable or even Ricciarelli, who does a superb downward sweep of two octaves in the Act 3 duet just before ''O dolci mani'', using the optional low C. Dame Kiri takes the higher C, which is faithful to the original score but less dramatic. I am slightly worried too that her final ''Ecco un artista'' in the execution scene is delivered not so much in a snarl as in the tones of Margaret Thatcher quelling a rowdy House of Commons.
Giacomo Aragall may, like Dame Kiri, be an unexpected choice as Cavaradossi, but the produces a stream of glorious heroic tone from first to last. His vocal reliability has been shown in his previous recordings of Gounod, Massenet and Donizetti, and it is equally so here. His phrasing is sensitive, but sadly his control of dynamic is far less so. There are moments when he shows what delicate half-fones he can produce, but ''Rocondita armonia'' has little that is dolcissimo in it (one of Puccini's principal markings) and too much that is strenuously forte. Jose Carreras on both his recordings (Karajan and Davis) is far more detailed in his pointing of word meaning, and Giuseppe di Stefano (Sabata) is the most illuminating of all, as in the smile he conveys in the voice on ''Qual occio al mondo'' in the Act 1 duet followed by an implied chuckle at the start of ''Mia gelosa'', a passage over which Solti rather unexpectedly drags a little.
Other roles are all well cast. The only really striking point to note is that the Sacristan is sung not by the usual aged-sounding comprimario but by the resonant Spiro Malas, well-remembered from his contributions to the Bonynge/Sutherland sets for Decca of Donizetti's La fille du Regiment and L'elisir d'amore. Musically (with the exception of one short-breathed phrase) it is pure gain, though there is less sharp distinction of voice than usual, when he is talking to Scarpia. The recording is the most vivid yet given to Tosca. It is in that in particular that this Decca issue gains over Karajan's DG, though in terms of presence and placing of particular voices on an identifiable stage, Davis's Philips issue remains finest of all in its superb CD transfer. One nice point about the Decca recording is that in the Prelude to Act 3 the bells have actually been recorded from churches and clocks, not conventionally in the orchestra. It creates less of an atmosphere than you might expect, but it is an asset. Maybe the CD, when it arrives, will alter the balance of advantage in sound. As it is, my own first choice remains the Karajan, when any lack of definition in the sound can be easily forgotten in the heat of the performance. There is also the still magnificent Sabata set with Callas, Gobbi and di Stefano at their finest, which in its unique command has you forgetting aged (if well-balanced) mono sound.'