This Otello of 1955, issued at long, long last, marked Kubelík’s accession as music director and the first staging by the company of Verdi’s tragedy. As I well recall, excitement and expectation were high, and the performance was electrifying. After more than 50 years would it still sound as impressive? Indeed it does, thanks not least to Kubelík’s superb conducting. Even today he remains underrated as an opera conductor (his Trojans soon after is another memorable occasion that I hope will be issued). Here he combines the dramatic drive of Toscanini with the more yielding approach of Serafin. While never losing an overview of the score, he brings out the myriad detail with an unerring ear for what matters: the two big ensembles are nicely contrasted with the plangent intricacies of Desdemona’s ‘Willow Song’ and ‘Ave Maria’.

Vinay’s Moor is an overwhelming interpretation – a terrifying portrayal of love, jealousy and anguish, sung in that peculiarly pained tone of his. Del Monaco sang a more trumpet-like Otello, Vickers one with grander declamation, Domingo a more innately musical performance; but Vinay’s timbre tears at the heart so that one shares in his pain of the soul.

Brouwenstijn is a most womanly and vulnerable Desdemona. In the love duet she is not quite at her best but in the devastating Act 3 duet she sings with tremenedous passion, and her Act 4 scena is notable for sweet tone, musical accuracy and, in the ‘Ave Maria’, a lovely cantabile and an exquisitely poised high A flat at its end.

At the time there was disappointment that the announced Iago, Tito Gobbi, was sacked by Kubelík because of his failure to turn up for rehearsals. He was replaced by the estimable house baritone of the day, Otakar Kraus, who brings an insinuating tone and plausible manner based on obedience to the text. From his singing alone one can almost visualise the bright-eyed, scheming villain. John Lanigan, the company’s young lyric tenor of the day, provides a debonair Cassio. The rest are more than adequate.

The mono sound is dim at times and one would like a broader perspective, but one soon forgets these limitations in the immediacy of the performance, though comparison with the Bayreuth Ring of the same year (Testament) shows what might have been. As well as any of its successors, it fulfils the exigent demands Verdi places on his cast and Vinay here surpasses even his own high standard in his live performances for Toscanini and Furtwängler. His murder of Desdemona and its terrible aftermath are truly tragic.