‘47 ‘La Boheme’: Thanks for the Memories

Nostalgia buffs will like this release for two reasons. First, it’s packaged to simulate the original 1947 LP album set, with slip pockets for the CDs and now-corny cover art. Second, it recalls a time when standards in casting were almost casually high. A golden age relic, in other words. But not entirely.

Saya~o, who was near the end of her Met career in 1947, apparently never recorded as well as she sounded in person. Here, she makes a light and pinched Mimi. Tucker, at the beginning of his Met career, however, makes a ringing Rodolfo.

But what variety in the secondary casting! Each of the Bohemians sounds like an individual, while the veteran comic bass Salvatore Baccaloni (who gets top billing on the album’s cover over Francesco Valentino’s Marcello) turns Alcindoro into a person rather than a caricature. Similarly, Mimi Benzell makes Musetta sweet rather than arch. Antonicelli’s conducting is flexible and responsive in a way no longer current. Ah, memories.

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Recordings are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).