With vivid and lifelike digital recording, with a beautifully-placed reading from Lamberto Gardelli, with characterization from the varied cast that suggests stage experience in these same roles, there is much to be said for this Hungaroton issue even in the face of strong competition. The recording is exceptionally faithful with voices and orchestra very clearly focused in a believable acoustic and with the off-stage chorus distant enough to sound atmospheric while remaining very clear and detailed. The excellent Decca sound for the Sutherland/Bonynge version is more spacious against the familiar Kingsway Hall acoustic, but on balance the digital frequency range, presented without over-brilliant glare, makes the Hungaroton even more vivid.
There may be no outstanding individual voices in the team of incidental singers—Tamara Takacs as the Mistress of the Novices, so important in the first scene, is the nearest—but there are happily few slavonic wobbles, and the co-ordination is excellent with stage production generally effective and illuminating in telling the story. Ilona Tokody makes an attractively girlish-sounding Angelica, fresh and sweet in tone until the voice is under pressure, but then it fails to expand. Above the slave the strangulated tone is not pretty, and something of a flutter develops along with shrillness. For some that may be a complete bar to enjoyment, but pressure moments are happily an exception, and the characterization is charming, with diction immaculate and generally idiomatic-sounding, with a facial expression presented on almost every phrase. My principal reservation would be less over Tokody than over the Princess of Eszter Poka, for this is a breathy voice, the least steady in the cast, and—partly because she is backwardly balanced compared with Angelica—she lacks contralto weight and power. Her singing is musically intelligent and responsive, but one is simply not afraid of this Zi Princepessa, and nor would Angelica be The combination of Sutherland and Christa Ludwig on Decca is far more formidable. Quite apart from the excellent quality of recording, the review copy of the Hungaroton issue had excellent surfaces.R1 '8311089'