The Mehta version of 1973 with Leontyne Price making her second complete recording of Tosca (first, with Karajan on Decca—nla) comes up very vividly indeed in this CD transfer, and brings with it a practical advantage over all previous CD sets. Where the earlier versions—and now Solti's new Decca set too—break between the discs in the middle of Act 2, the new RCA has Act 1 alone one the first disc, and squeezes both Act 2 and Act 3 on the second, making a none-too-extreme side-length of 67 minutes. The RCA set too is rather more generously banded than the Decca, which falls down irritatingly in the Act 1 duet for Tosca and Cavaradossi. It is on one single band of 12 1/2 minutes from the heroine's entry onwards, where some at least of the separate sections—all of them exceptionally memorable in their contrasts—should be separately retrievable.
As to performance, the contrasts tend to reinforce my reservations over the Decca set, warm and colourful as it is. With Mehta a strong and dramatic Puccinian—remember his Decca Turandot with Sutherland and his DG Fanciulla del West (only on LP) with the Covent Garden forces—the RCA performance runs at a consistently higher voltage, bringing out more bite in the drama, supporting the three principals in assumptions that are always positive and red-blooded. That specially applies to Price as Tosca. This version may not have quite the vocal refinement and sense of timing which make her 1963 performance with Karajan a match even for Callas (with de Sabata on EMI) but the reading is different only in tiny matters, just detailed and with equivalent emotional power. In one important moment she actually outshines her earlier version in telling the story of murdering Scarpia to Cavaradossi in Act 3. Dame Kiri next to her is at times more tender and very sympathetic, but the portrait pales by comparison.
When the RCA recording first appeared, it was a time when a vast range of operas was being cast with Domingo as hero and Milnes as baritone villain. We came to take the partnership for granted, so that it was very easy to exaggerate the idea that their performances were not specific enough, suggesting a production line. My feeling this time, hearing Domingo as Cavaradossi and Milnes as Scarpia once more, is what strong and convincing performances they are, always highly musical with Milnes in particular more biting and characterful than I had remembered. He makes Nucci on the Solti set sound too warm, altogether less tense in a passage like the Te Deum, while in Act 2, Milnes, rather like Gobbi in his time, manages to both noble and sinister.
My one reservation over recommending the RCA version as a first CD choice, is that at times the strings of the New Philharmonia—before Muti took them in hand—are not always so pure and sweet as they later became. The sound is not quite so full-ranging as on the Karajan/DG set, but it is better balanced and even more three-dimensional. There is always the unique Callas/de Sabata set too in mono, but for a more general recommendation Mehta and Karajan both have the strongest claims, and the Mehta brings the finer and more consistent singing.'