These three BBC episodes of Great Characters in Opera may be old-school in terms of staging and appearance but they are not old hat. As a performer who was already on (film) screen during the first heyday of post-war Italian cinema, Gobbi is both a camera ‘natural’ and – important given this repertoire – an excellent judge of scale. Even in full cry as the avenging Rigoletto (‘Cortigiani’ or ‘Si, vendetta’), and in full traditional costume, hump and make-up, he never feels embarrassingly too much. Producer Patricia Foy also deserves credit for camerawork which is neither afraid to come in close nor star-fixated.

Humps are not fashionable in Rigolettos staged today. From the off, Gobbi, confronting the creditable Sparafucile of Dennis (sic) Wicks – misspelled by ICA’s booklet in confusion with the trombonist – demonstrates the dramatic advantage of actual deformity for evoking sympathy and repulsion. Gobbi’s whole physical vocabulary as the jester reminds one of Antony Sher’s account of assembling the physique of Richard III. A star drop-in gives us Scotto as Gilda, unconvincingly mature acting the daughter at home, moving as the ravished girl overcome with more worry about her father’s reaction than guilt at what’s happened. Gobbi here is terrific at listening, doing nothing.

Gianni Schicchi has lovely support from Elizabeth Robson’s Lauretta (she gets her aria) and the likes of Elizabeth Bainbridge, Michael Langdon and a young Yvonne Minton as the family. Sadly we don’t get the will reading but Gobbi is scary at warning of the punishment for discovery of forging and uncommonly credible when ‘thinking’ wordlessly. The visuals are a bit of a 1950s Shakespeare period piece.

The Tosca excerpts – two of the three main Scarpia/Tosca confrontations, including the murder – provide a terrific platform for too rarely seen Australian soprano Marie Collier. This was the time of her stand-ins at Covent Garden for Callas and she really offers Gobbi something to play to, offering an original, more feminine diva – yet one whose ‘Questo è il bacio di Tosca’ is genuinely frightening and laying out the body convincing.

Sound and picture (especially in Tosca) can only be called acceptable but, as an important glimpse of one of the great singing actors of last century, the release is self-recommending.