Medea‚ or Medée to give the work its proper title‚ has had a chequered career on stage and on disc. The original French version of 1797 with dialogue is seldom performed‚ never (except in extract) recorded apart from an off­the­air Nuova Era set. The version‚ with recitatives‚ originally composed by Franz Lachner‚ is the one almost always performed but with the recitatives translated into Italian. Haydn‚ Schubert‚ Beethoven and Weber are just a few of the composers who praised the work yet it has never properly entered the repertory in spite of the efforts of great prima donnas such as Pasta‚ Tietjens‚ Mazzoleni and – in comparatively recent times – Maria Callas and Gwyneth Jones‚ who have both recorded it‚ for EMI and Decca repectively. Unofficial versions‚ recorded live‚ with Callas also exist. Seek out the late and much­missed Lionel Salter’s chapter on the work in Opera on Record 3 (Hutchinson: 1984) if you want a full exegesis of the work’s history and its recordings. Little has changed since then until now. This performance from Austrian Radio archives is a welcome souvenir of a production at the Vienna State Opera in 1972. Opinions were divided at the time about the modernistic staging but the musical side of things was much admired. Comparitively late in her career Rysanek was assuming a new role (having recently added Salome to her laurels). It was and is well suited to her renowned gifts as a singing actress‚ and she apparently held her audience spellbound. Joseph Wechsberg waxed lyrical on her performance in the pages of Opera‚ which put the diva on its cover. She rises to appreciable and increasingly impassioned and desperate heights in delineating the traumas of the tortured sorceress‚ so unerringly proposed by Cherubini’s classico­Romantic music for his heroine. It is only when you turn to Callas that reservations about Rysanek’s portrayal emerge. Callas’s voice ‘speaks’ more swiftly‚ her Italian diction is far more incisive and expressive and‚ even more than Rysanek‚ she conveys Medea’s anguish. This is a case of the better being the enemy of the good. By the side of either of these readings‚ that of Gwyneth Jones sounds generalised. Callas has the invaluable support of Serafin‚ who had been her conductor and mentor when she first assumed the role at the Florence Maggio Musicale in 1953. By his side Horst Stein sounds unidiomatic. Mirto Picchi‚ a much­underrated tenor of the early postwar era‚ is superior in every way – better focused‚ more heroic – to Prevedi‚ who is heard to greater advantage on the earlier Decca. Similarly Modesti (EMI) is a truly Italianate Creon beside his rough East­European counterpart. Lilowa makes much of Neris’s beautiful‚ reflective aria‚ but isn’t half as eloquent as Miriam Pirazzini on EMI. Popp‚ who sounds a bit out of sorts‚ doesn’t match Scotto’s affecting account of Glauce’s music. Gruberová turns up in a tiny role. The theatre recording has presence. Both performances make the cuts that have always been common. What we need is an authentic recording of the French original‚ with dialogue in good‚ modern sound. Pleased as I was to encounter Rysanek as Medea‚ the EMI‚ housing Callas’s unique accents‚ even though she was in tired voice in 1957‚ and her fine support‚ still make that set the recommendation in a score that foretells so much that was to come in the 19th century.