The Busch set has to rank among the most satisfying performances of this work ever available on disc, up there with the almost contemporaneous (1947) Toscanini and the Serafin of some ten years later (just reissued), not entirely to forget the pre-war Met rendering under Panizza with Martinelli as the Moor, in inferior sound. Let me state at the beginning that here, unlike on the Naxos issue from the Met, you have to make very little, if any, allowance for aural deficiencies: the mono sound is true, in good balance with no distortions of the voices, on a par in fact with the Toscanini, and it is with the older conductor's fiery, elemental, definitive reading that Busch's deserves to be compared.
Busch is just as rhythmically alert and buoyant, as keen in alerting the ear to instrumental detail, and as unswerving in giving us the unvarnished truth about the tragedy without resort to sentimentality. With the Met's superb orchestra, perhaps aware that it was playing under one of the last of the greats, and a finely honed chorus at the peak of its achievement, there's a lot to savour even before you turn your mind and ear to the merits of the singers, who are themselves very special.
Vinay's Otello had grown in stature and vocal command since the Toscanini broadcast. The depth of Otello's inner anguishing and the sense of a noble soul struck down by jealousy are even more compelling than on the RCA set. The vibrancy of his dark, baritonal middle register and thrilling top are gainfully deployed to convey the erotic tensions of the love duet, the torment of 'Ora per sempre', where a slower tempo than that usually heard these days adds to the overwhelming power of the passage, and the sheer terror of Otello's mind in a whirl at Act 3's close. As a whole the portrayal is at once as majestic and as pathetic as it ought to be. By his side Warren is as insinuating a Iago as Valdengo (Toscanini) and Gobbi (Serafin), and that's saying something. 'Era la notte' is sung intimately into Otello's ear, sotto voce as written, with some marvellous inflexions of the text: this Iago is wholly in command of his evil purpose.
Albanese gives one of the performances of her life. If you can, read Paul Jackson's lengthydisquisition on its many merits in Saturday Afternoons at the Old Met (Duckworth: 1992). Her legato, innate sense of style and identification with Desdemona's plight are there throughout, most clearly exemplified in her understanding of her part in each of her duets with Otello. In the Willow Song (and sometimes in the Act 3 duet) she is a shade lacrymose but recovers for a sublime 'Ave Maria'. The support is all on a par with the rest. Altogether this a Verdi set in a hundred.
It's good to have Serafin's sane, thought-through reading available at mid price, with Vickers an Otello almost as searing as Vinay's and Gobbi a more lightweight Iago than Warren but even more subtle, Rysanek a moving but less idiomatic Desdemona than Albanese; but just at the moment the Busch experience admits of no other. Don't miss it.'