This recital of Donizetti and Verdi has been waiting for the laser beam—and it was certainly worth the four-year wait. The voice's very first notes of ''Il dolce suono'' are just that: the immediacy of this CD transfer makes Sass's live, penetrating soprano duet like an oboe with the orchestral flute. What is more, it captures the entire spread of the voice in the springing Donizettian crescendos and decrescendos of ''Ardon gl'incensi'', just as it holds, firm and fierce, Amelia's shrieking realization at mezzanotte, and Leonora's chilling cry of ''Maledizione!''
The Orchestra, under Ervin Lukacs, show their mettle in the resonant acoustic, especially in the Prelude to Ballo's Second Act, though the direction is just a little sluggish in the excerpts from Forza and Otello. In the latter, though, there is compensation indeed in the shuddering passion which Sass brings to the portamento and final farewell of the Willow Song: it is entirely characteristic of the rare dramatic immediacy of these short extracts.'