This is a Tosca upon which a great deal of care has been lavished. About 50 per cent too much, to tell you the truth. At the start it is good to hear a conductor paying so much attention to the details of Puccini's score, but by the end I was beginning to wonder whether there was a single bar in the opera that Maazel had left alone, so incessant are his artful rubato, his elaborately moulded dynamic shadings, his primpings and pointings. Fischer-Dieskau catches something of this manner. He combines great vocal splendour and authority with so much word-painting and the vocal equivalent of satanically raised eyebrows that the result is both unidiomatic and exaggerated. Nilsson is a fearless Tosca, shaping ''Vissi d'arte'' with real distinction, a match even for Fischer-Dieskau's Scarpia in Act 2, but quite able to fine her voice down almost to intimacy. Corelli is excitingly brazen-voiced, a slight occasional bleat in the tone not diminishing his vocal allure, and he is the only one of three principals whose glamour is unmistakably Italian. Even he, though, is somewhat chivvied along by Maazel: his ''E lucevan le stelle'', like many pages in this reading, is finely detailed almost to the point of affectation. Corelli's ability to maintain a beautiful line throughout all this is praiseworthy, but the music between that aria and Tosca's arrival with the safe-conduct is pulled about almost unrecognizably.
The recording is quite fancily produced, too. It was a nice idea for the Sacristan to turn to face the altar for his prayer in Act 1, but by that stage Angelotti has already retreated to what in this production is clearly not the Attavantis's private chapel but their funeral vault. Later on the band playing a gavotte for the Queen's reception are positioned on Scarpia's balcony (they retreat to the courtyard for the cantata), while Cavaradossi is tortured in a very small echo-chamber. The wood, in short, is largely obscured by elaborate topiary.'