Though the Czech tenor, Peter Dvorsky, born in 1951, tends to be associated on disc with the Slavonic repertory, he has had a formidable international career singing in a far wider range of works, notably in Verdi and Puccini. He was Lorin Maazel’s choice of Des Grieux in the 1992 Sony recording of Manon Lescaut (7/93), but this mixed Puccini collection dates from five years earlier, with four items – including those from Manon Lescaut – recorded in Budapest and the remaining six in Berlin.
Dvorsky’s timbre is far more Italianate than I had expected from his recordings of Czech music, and though his shading of dynamic and phrase is often commendably subtle – as at the end of Rodolfo’s ‘Che gelida manina’ – his singing can be strenuous in the bad Italian manner, with occasional signs of strain, as in ‘Nessun dorma!’. Those faults are more obvious in the Berlin recordings, where the voice is a degree rougher: there is a striking contrast between the relatively crude Berlin performance of Cavaradossi’s Act 1 ‘Recondita armonia’ and the Budapest version of the Act 3 aria, ‘E lucevan le stelle’.
The Butterfly love duet – by far the longest item, running from ‘Viene la sera’ to the end of Act 1 – was also recorded in Berlin. It is not helped by the undistinguished, slightly raw singing of Fiamma Izzo in the title-role, while the conducting of Roberto Paternostro is depressingly sluggish. The two Boheme duets are rather better, though the most successful of the duets is the one from the end of Act 3 of Manon Lescaut, where Des Grieux passionately persuades the Captain of the ship to take him on board. Having the full scene is far more effective than offering just the aria, ‘No! No! Pazzo son’. The booklet has texts but no translation, though in attributing arias to acts there are several careless errors. A fair recommendation at super-bargain price, even if the recording is not ideally clear.'