Even those who agree that Thaïs is far too long might find this 1959 French Radio Broadcast too severely cut: almost a third of the music is missing. That having been said, if you want to get to know this perfumed, religio-sensual work, this 98 minutes of music certainly will tell you what you want to know–and as a performance, it has nothing to be ashamed of. One bizarre aspect of it, however, is the addition of a spoken description in Act 1, in French, by a seductive-voiced woman describing (I think) a vision Athanael has of Thaïs.
Andrée Esposito’s Thaïs is lovely–alluring and then repentant (those are her two traits); not as weird as Renée Doria, not as slightly used as Beverly Sills, not as lousy as Anna Moffo, not as affected and precious as Renée Fleming for competitive labels. It’s a pity that she ducks the high-D at the close of her big aria, though. Jean Mollien sings Nicias well enough and Robert Massard varies between sounding bored and being positively riveting. Where this set shines, in addition to Esposito, is in the leadership of Albert Wolff, whose passionate direction pulses just the way this quasi-embarrassing score should. The sound is good for a 1959 broadcast. It’s a bargain too–but is severely cut. If you want the whole opera, Fleming (on Decca) is the one for you.
