This CD does in fact contain Giuseppe di Stefano’s first recordings (made in Lausanne in 1944), but it also includes some selections from ’47, a bit of a Bohème from ’50-’51 with Licia Albanese, and an “Ingemisco” led (quickly) by Toscanini in ’51. In the accompanying booklet, mezzo Giulietta Simionato says of di Stefano that he had “genius and disorderliness,” and this is absolutely true; but none of the latter is in evidence here. (The tenor started to become sloppy around 1951.) What we hear is a voice so natural that it’s like speech, exhibiting true pianissimos and a sometimes forceful delivery that nonetheless remains elegant.
In the studio in 1944 he takes the Pearl Fisher aria down a whole tone and “Che gelida manina” down a half-tone. The Bohème aria is sung in key in 1950/51 and includes a glorious high-C that he repeats at the close of that opera’s first act with Albanese. Elsewhere, arias from Mignon are lovingly sung (twice), as is Federico’s Lament from L’Arlesiana, in which he opts not to take the optional high-B near the close, preferring to remain in the gentler mode. There’s not an ungainly piece of singing here and di Stefano fans should grab it.
