If you want Aida as music-theatre, this is undoubtedly the set to have. On none of the rival sets on CD will you hear the words treated with so much attention as the music. On none of them will you hear a complete cast that so conveys to you the inner feelings of the characters with such utter conviction. Chief among these, of course, is Maria Callas. When I reviewed this version on its second LP appearance, nine years ago (2/78), I pointed out that she started a little tentatively, but by the time she has reached ''Ritorna vincitor'', you are at once aware that she has totally immersed herself inthe slave-girl's feelings, aware of herself as the daughter of a king, and torn between her duty to her homeland and her love for Radames. The hate she registers in spitting out the words ''dell'Egiziecoorte'', the sudden change of tonal colour at ''Sventurata! che dissi!'', the observance of the triste marking at ''I sacri numi'', finally the withdrawn quality at ''numi pieta'' illumine text and music and give them a dramatic relevance found in the performances of no other Aida on a CD or indeed elsewhere. That is what Callas is about and to appreciate it, you have to follow the score, or at least the text scrupulously. Listening with only half your attention you will find faults in the vocal production, even in the calibre of the voice compared with some other sopranos.
As I pointed out in that last review, the instances of verbal and musical imagination could be multiplied here, but that might spoil your own discovery of them yourself, whether you are hearing the assumption for the first or umpteenth time. I would draw attention only to the wonderful recollection of the beauties of her homeland, ''O freschi valle'', etc. in the Third Act aria, making you forgive a few ugly sounds at the piece's close. Once it is over, this Aida is joined by that nonpareil of an Amonasro, Tito Gobbi. They never encountered each other on stage in these roles, but that did not prevent a theatrical electricity informing their confrontation here. gobbi is as frightening as the angry general as he is consolatory and plangent when he has Aida at his feet. His catches the pride, the regality and the paternal feelings all within the short space of time allotted Amonasro.
But the performance that really 'got' me on this occasion was Barbieri's Amneris, simply because I had forgotten just how a genuine Italian mezzo can sound like in this part. True there is Cossotto on the Muti set (also EMI), but Barbieri is subtler and, like Callas and Gobbi, marvellous at conveying feelings—in her case unrequited love and fierce jealousy—through the text. That makes her duet in Act 2 with Callas and her great scena in Act 4 quite riveting; how you sympathize with this rejected yet proud woman. On the other hand, I found Tucker's Radames slightly less impressive than in the past, not quite Italianate enough in diction and a little superficial when set beside Domingo on both the Muti and Abbado (DG) sets. Still, his is a genuinely heroic tenor, and in both his duets with Callas he is roused to impassioned utterance seconded by some often distinctive phrasing. It is again good to hear Italian sounds from the two excellent basses.
Serafin's reading is in the central Italian tradition of 30 years ago; that is to say it is unobtrusively right in matters of tempo, emphasis and phrasing while occasionally passing indifferent ensemble in the choral and orchestral contribution. Muti is both more exact and more exciting, but at times more superficial, Abbado a little cool. Of course, the recorded sound cannot compete with its more modern rivals and even for its day it was hardly a model of clarity. On the other hand, nowhere else will you find the characters or their relationships so sharply defined. As JBS commented in Opera on Record (Hutchinson: 1979): ''If reduced to just one recording of Aida many of us would, I fancy, be found clinging to this one.'' That is even more likely now it has turned up in a new, clearer format.'