Nobody will contest the premise that the 1960s and ’70s were a very good – golden? well, possibly – period for Verdi voices. In raiding its archives, Bavarian Radio has concentrated on live concerts with the Munich Radio Orchestra from the period 1962 to 1984. The first track immediately announces that this compilation means business. At the height of her powers, Leontyne Price launches into ‘Ernani, involami’ with energy, commanding authority, slightly sketchy coloratura, and voice to spare. If this is not a great Verdi voice, then none is.

The rest of the 15 singers split not quite evenly between the native Italians and the others. If you are listening blind, as I did, a trick is played when an outstandingly elegant tenor who is clearly Carlo Bergonzi singing ‘Ah! si, ben mio’ from Il trovatore (with real trills) is followed by a different tenor in the cabaletta. The show-off high Cs should probably give away that the second singer is Franco Bonisolli. Three Italian baritones are heard in roles well tailored for them: Piero Cappuccilli roaring with power in Rigoletto’s ‘Cortigiani’; Renato Bruson, softer-grained and playing like an artist with his legato as Giorgio Germont in La traviata; and Giuseppe Taddei, sounding a warm-hearted, rather elderly Falstaff, a touch cavalier over the notes.

The non-Italians make a diverse bunch. José Carreras smoulders with Mediterranean ardour in Il corsaro. In Rigoletto, by contrast, Nicolai Gedda’s Duke is playful, feather-light, charismatic, everything but idiomatic. Neil Shicoff is more convincingly Italianate in Ernani, Arleen Auger less so as a strangely dreamy Oscar in Un ballo in maschera. The appealing Anneliese Rothenberger brings personal touches, including some inventive rhythms, to Violetta’s scena from La traviata. Sena Jurinac, recorded too close, sounds a bit harsh in ‘Tu che le vanità’ from Don Carlo and the Munich brass are on ropy form. Margaret Price floats some beautiful sounds at the expense of an oddly un-Italianate chest register as Aida (‘Pace, pace’, which she also sang in concert in Munich, would have been a better choice). Here as well, though, there are imposing Verdi performances – Julia Varady a subtle Lady Macbeth of impressive resource, Vladimir Atlantov an Otello of searing metallic power and no small sensitivity. Conductors, orchestral standards and recording quality are variable. The voices, though, are all worth hearing.