''ENO at its very best.'' AB's verdict when reviewing the original issue on LP holds good eight years later, and the recording still keeps its honourable place alongside a select few that do something like justice to the opera in its original language.
Opera in English has two disadvantages: sometimes the words are inaudible and sometimes they are not. When they cannot be made out, which is usually the case in ensembles, native listners fret as they would not if the opera were in Italian. When they are clear, one tends to wish they weren't. When ''E strano'' becomes ''I wonder'' wonder (for English listeners) is just what the phrase is robbed of. The translator can't win: if he uses an intelligent vocabulary (''My life was too impetuous'' for ''Dei miei vollenti spiriti'') it sounds silly to be singing it to such a lyrical tune and if he goes for plain statements (''I hate myself: I'm so ashamed'' for the start of Alfredo's cabaletta) it sounds banal. Then, when the chorus compliment Alfredo (''That's how to take it! Splendid!'') we hear overtones of the unanimous pirates and policemen of Gilbert and Sullivan. In this recording, the diction is very clear indeed.
As for opera performed in the English style, it has in this instance so many virtues that one probably shouldn't grumble at all; but grateful as one is for such well-mannered, scrupulous observance of detail, there are times when the voices and emotions need to swell a little more dangerously. John Brecknock, clean and lik able throughout hasn't the ring and passion needed in his denunciations, and there are passages in Violetta's music that call for fuller tone or (as an alternative) a more passionate, la in timbre than Valerie Masterson has to offer. Still, these are the negative points in a very positive performance. Masterson's singing is a model of reliable accomplishment, and her characterization is touchingly vivid. Mackerras's feeling for the tenderness of the score never betrays him into sentimentality. The production, which includes party noises appropriate to Gay Paree, is imaginative without being obtrusive, and the Peter Moores Foundation, which supported the recording, earn renewed gratitude.'