This should be a winner, ‘should’ signifying with some confidence a prediction and, with rather less, a sense of deserving. Here are two of the best and most justly admired singers of our time, the one young and pretty, the other a handsome veteran. Both are in fine voice, and just as the youth of the one is never betrayed by immaturity of style or uncertainty of technique, so the age of the other is at no point suggested by worn tone or recourse to anything other than scrupulous singing. They are accompanied in their solos by one of the century’s great pianists, who also, in the other items, conducts one of the world’s best orchestras. Their programme is varied, cleverly chosen to be both reassuring and unexpected; it is also good value yet leaves one wanting more rather than less.
What, then, are these hesitations as to ‘should’ meaning ‘ought’? They arise, but only mildly, in the first group of solos, which is Domingo’s. The first of his songs, the one by Carlos Gardel, seems commonplace in melody as in all things else; but never mind, it is not unpleasant. The love duet from Otello begins rather fomally on Domingo’s part and soon (and unusually for him) intonation comes into question (as indeed it did for a while in the Faust duet). At Desdemona’s entry an uneasy feeling occurs that what, in Fleming’s singing of Marguerite’s part in the Faust, had been the virtue of a live, intelligent response, here becomes an (intelligently) imposed expressiveness marring the beauty of the serene vocal line. Her solo group, coming immediately after, links backward and makes one wonder how far the style appropriate to Ellington has been allowed to influence the singing of Verdi. And – this is advanced somewhat diffidently – despite the assured and seemingly idiomatic performances, heretical promptings suggest that these songs of the Duke’s are not really so very good after all.
The programme ends with the waltz from Die Lustige Witwe, in time to which we lilt happily and rather wish for an encore. 60 minutes earlier, it began with the inspired surprise choice of West Side Story, a mini-suite in which the brash, violent street music alternates with achingly tender love-songs. This is fine, with Fleming’s sumptuous voice at its most beautiful; obviously it is not the ‘kid sound’ which Bernstein originally wanted, but in extracts this matters less. Then in the Garden scene from Faust they create a rapturous sense of something old and familiar made fresh and young again. For this alone I would want to have the recording, and of course there is much else. Its provenance is not entirely clear: described as ‘recorded live’, it has no applause, and the songs, with piano accompaniment, were recorded separately in the studio. More might have been revealed by one of those chatty introductory notes with behind-the-scenes stories of Renee, Placido and Danny: its absence is highly commendable.'