To have Callas, the most flashing-eyed of all sopranos as Turandot, is—on record at least—the most natural piece of casting. Other sopranos may be comparably icy in their command, but Callas with her totally distinctive tonal range was able to give the fullest possible characterization. With her Turandot was not just an implacable man-hater but a highly provocative female. One quickly reads something of Callas's own underlying vulnerability into such a portrait, its tensions, the element of brittleness. Equally in the final arioso of Alfano's completion, ''Del primo pianto'', the chesty way she sings ''Straniero'' in the opening phrase, addressing Calaf, is unforgettable in its continuing threat. With her the character seems so much more believably complex than with others.
It was sad that, except at the very beginning of her career, she felt unable to sing the role in the opera house, but this 1957 recording is far more valuable than any memory of the past, for me one of the most thrillingly magnetic of all her recorded performances, the more so when Schwarzkopf as Liu provides a comparably characterful and distinctive portrait, far more than a Puccinian 'little woman', sweet and wilting. Even more than usual one regrets that the confrontation between princess and slave is so brief. Though for some Schwarzkopf's observance of markings in Liu's two arias may seem to meticulous, the extra detail reinforces the fine-spun Straussian quality, notably in the rising and falling octaves of ''Signore ascolta''.
Next to such supreme singers it was perhaps cruel of Walter Legge to choose so relatively uncharacterful a tenor as Eugenio Fernandi as Calaf, but at least his timbre is pleasingly distinctive. What fully matches the singing of Callas and Schwarzkopf in its positive charactr is the conducting of Serafin, sometimes surprisingly free—as in the accelerando at the end of Act 1, begun much earlier than the score allows—but in its pacing invariably capturing rare colour, atmosphere and mood as well as dramatic point. The Ping, Pang and Pong episode of Act 2 has rarely sparkled so naturally, the work of a conductor who has known and loved the music in the theatre over a long career.
The conducting is so vivid that the limitations of the 1957 mono sound hardly seem to matter. As the very opening will reveal, the CD transfer makes it satisfyingly full-bodied, far more acceptable than RCA's scrawny stereo sound for the Leinsdorf set. Like so many of Calla's Scala sets the acoustic is on the dry side with solo voices balanced forward, but it avoids the boxiness of—for example—the Manon Lescaut set (EMI Cd CDS7 47393-8, 9/86). The chorus is not always well-served with sound that tends to overload at climaxes, but the propulsion of Serafin's conducting has one readily accepting that. Though with its rich, atmospheric stereo the Mehta set with Sutherland (Decca) remains the best general recommendation, it is thrilling to have this historic document so vividly restored.'