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Puccini: La Boheme (Maria Meneghini Callas, Anna Moffo, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Rolando Panerai. Nicola Zaccaria; La Scala Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Antonino Votto; Angel, 2
LPs). The familiar music is given a brilliant though dubious gloss in this eighth LP version of Puccini's rhapsodic Parisian ramble. Maria Callas, who might be expected to be too imperious for the tuberculous Mimi, steals the show with a melting, multifaceted performance that kindles startling new life in the Latin Quarter's cruelly harrowed seamstress. The villain of the affair is Conductor Votto, who allows his singers to amble through their parts at will, making an otherwise fine recording at times nearly insufferable by comparison with the unforgettable Toscanini version on RCA Victor.
Bellini: La Sonnambula (Maria Meneghini Callas, Eugenia Ratti, Fiorenza Cossotto, Nicola Monti, Nicola Zaccaria; La Scala Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Antonino Votto; Angel, 3 LPs). Bellini's tale of a sleepwalking bride-to-be who wanders into the wrong bedroom is wispier material than Soprano Callas usually likes to work with, but she takes the title role fervently and in high style. The melting sweetness of her sleepwalking aria ("Ah! non credea mirarti") is the high point of a finely styled recording.
Debussy: Pelleas et Melisande (Victoria de los Angeles, Jacques Jansen, Gerard Souzay, Pierre Froumenty; Chœurs Raymond St. Paul and Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Franchise conducted by Andre Cluytens; Angel, 3 LPs). The otherworldly, impressionistic glow that suffuses Maurice Maeterlinck's text and Claude Debussy's score is here gorgeously reflected in a brilliantly balanced, richly colored interpretation by Conductor Cluytens. As Arkel, King of Allemonde, French Bass Pierre Froumenty dominates the opera with his big. dark-hued voice and his affecting commentary on the thickening tragedy. "If I were God,'' he sings at a high point of his role, "I would take pity on the hearts of men!"