The Philadelphia Orchestra has in it players of the highest calibre and it is good to hear them in this music. That is almost the sum total of recommendation I can provide here. Pavarotti is in fine voice, but so he was in his previous recording under Patane (Decca), when his Nedda was Mirella Freni and far preferable to Daniella Dessi who makes little of the character and has developed a marked unevenness of production. Juan Pons was a degree fresher of voice in his earlier recording with Domingo and the excellent Teresa Stratas under Pretre (Philips); but he is always better when seen, and for that purpose and others the video is to be recommended (7/90). Muti also has recorded the opera previously (EMI), on the same austere textual principles but not quite so heavy with selfconscious suggestions of reverence and revelation.
Almost from the start of the opera's performing history certain high notes came into use which are not in the printed score. The composer must have heard them countless times without denouncing; indeed some are included in the 1907 recording which he himself is said to have supervised. But 'Thou shalt not' is Muti's first commandment regarding these notes, and it is directed at the audience as well as the singers, both of whom tend to enjoy them. Thus, the climax of the Prologue is muted (no high A flat, no G on ''incominciate'' but just a tame scale-note down); Canio the showman is not allowed to rouse the village folk with his last ''a ventitre ore'', but merely restates his lower-voiced proposition; he goes down to a melodically weak low note where his first B flat in ''No, Pagliaccio non son'' normally occurs, and at the end of that solo, where tradition has seen the climax of a towering denunciation, the voice is again made to go down to the least effective part of its range.
Now, if this is to be the rule, then it should be applied throughout. If the score gives the note E for Canio to declame his ''il nome'' then Pavarotti should be made to sing it: but of course he doesn't, and quite rightly too, as he knows perfectly well that it would be ineffective, in the same way as these earlier literalisms are ineffective. As a matter of dramatic fidelity, if the score says that Canio's first utterance should be behind the scenes, then that is how he should sound, instead of way out front. If the score gives accel., affrettando and so forth, then, if we are to have the score and nothing but the score, such directions should be strictly (and exclusively) observed. The absurd paradox is that reverence of the kind insisted upon in this recording does the score no service, but saps it of its native punch and energy. The exaggerated pauses, exaggerated slowness, exaggerated pianissimos are impositions, the vulgarity of over-refinement, and its touch is scarcely less inimical than was the barnstorming of old.'