Vintage Bjorling here. It is true that the operas represented are ones that Bjorling recorded complete (Romeo et Juliette from the Metropolitan in 1947 available on Rodolphe, the others on well-known studio sets), but each of these performances has something special. The Boheme, for instance. The famous 1957 Beecham/EMI recording (6/87) shows Bjorling as a richly gifted Rodolfo, yet there’s not a great deal of spontaneous life in the portrayal for all its scrupulous lyricism, whereas here Rodolfo’s meeting with Mimi has a freedom and naturalness of spacing, and with it comes the tenderness and sensitivity worthy of a poet. In Romeo et Juliette there is more poetry still, and, perhaps because he is on home ground and singing in his native Swedish, he achieves an elegance that is more truly French than the Metropolitan performance, which is in the French language. If the 1947 recording is at hand it is worth looking out in order to compare the solo verse of “Ange adorable” (Act 1, incidentally, not Act 2 as the Bluebell booklet states) and his part in the tomb scene. Of course he sings superbly for the New Yorkers but it is the Stockholm house that calls forth the affections. Such differences are less apparent in Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci, though again the use of Swedish in Pagliacci seems to free and enliven him, so that “Un tal gioco” puts the words to work, and “Vesti la giubba” is touching in its impression of genuine, unhistrionic sadness. As for the Manon Lescaut, that is glorious: Des Grieux was always among his best parts and the 1956 RCA studio recording (10/91) is a fine one, but the excerpts from this matinee of 1959, so near the end of his career and life, and indeed the last Des Grieux he was going to sing, find him in miraculously youthful voice and inspired throughout.
His principal associate among the singers here is Hjordis Schymberg, a regular partner in Stockholm. It is a little sad to hear her ageing so inescapably in between the 1940 Mimi and the Manon 19 years later, where Bjorling to such a large extent retains the firmness and ring of his youth; yet she too sings with affection, sometimes quite beautifully even in the Manon Lescaut and especially in its last act. The other singer heard at any length is Aase Nordmo-Lovberg of whom at one time EMI had high hopes: the duet shows the power and fullness of her tone, but it seems an unsettled voice, disconcertingly void of the vibrancy which this music needs. The Lola in this scene is Bjorling’s sister-in-law, American-born Kristina Lindberg who sang as Bette Bjorling having married Jussi’s brother Gosta. The recorded sound varies much as expected, the more recent recordings being the clearest. All are well worth having. Bjorling specialists will not need to be told that, and I should think it very likely that anyone who buys the discs will join the ranks and become a Bjorling specialist ere long.'