A likeable performance, with a likeable Schicchi at the centre of it. One does not expect Freni still to sound like a girlish ingenue, quiet singing is a little more of an effort for her than it once was and the tone can spread under pressure (a slightly closer than natural focus on the voices makes both of these a bit more obvious than they might be in the theatre). But her charm and her phrasing are unimpaired, and her aria is beautifully done. Alagna in 1991 sounds like a not very large-voiced lyric tenor of great intelligence and taste, with the sense not to force his voice beyond its limits. His praise of Florence and the new vigour brought to her by men like Schicchi is ardent, and he produces a lyrical, fined-down tone for the exchanges with Freni towards the end. The other singers are all reliable, though the detestable habit of giving Maestro Spinelloccio ill-fitting dentures and a penetrating whistle on every sibilant is taken to extremes. The women’s trio as they disguise Schicchi is very well done by Frittoli (a possible Lauretta herself, by the sound of it), Podles and Curiel.
But is likability enough for Schicchi? Nucci sings the role better than most and does not overact save in the nasal whine he adopts to impersonate Buoso Donati (but then most baritones do or overdo that). It is typical of him that “Addio Firenze” is sung very beautifully but without a hint of malice (if their ruse is found out, he is telling Buoso’s heirs, they will wave the farewell of exile with a stump, their right hands having been amputated). He is, in short, not an especially characterful or dominant Schicchi; he does not command the stage from his first entrance. Still, Bartoletti knows just how to pace this not wholly jovial comedy and there is enough audible stage business to capture the sense of a real performance.'