Opera buffs and older record collectors will recall that the first complete recording of Lakme (Decca mono LXT2738/40, 11/52) was that made by Mado Robin, the coloratura soprano who in her less than 15-year career established an international reputation as a leading Gilda, Queen of Night, Lucia and Lakme and who was, tragically, to die a couple of months before her 42nd birthday. That first set found her in somewhat variable form—the voice often pure and brilliant, but sometimes white in tone—and was marred by insensitive and out-of-tune singing by Libero de Luca as the English army officer who falls in love with the Brahmin priestess; but it had many good points, not least the alert conducting of Georges Sebastien and (thanks to intelligent production) a real sense of atmosphere and dramatic flow in this delightfully melodic score.
Dramatic illusion is in short supply, I fear, in the present recording, made for the French radio three years later and hitherto unpublished. The separate musical numbers are left unlinked, either by the dialogue of the work's original opera-comique form or the recitatives of its later revision; the two entr'actes and the entire Act 2 dance scene are omitted; and there are six further cuts (which include abbreviations of the Act 2 opening chorus, Lakme's Act 3 berceuse and the final love duet). It is, frankly, a 'stand-up-and-sing' performance with an orchestra which, to put it kindly, is only second-rate and is poorly recorded. (The trombones in the opening bars are impossibly coarse, the strings are gritty, and in the Bell song the glockenspiel is ineffectual: there is also some distortion of the voices, as in the charming duet for Lakme and her attendant in Act 1.) The one who comes out of it best here is Pierre Savignol as the heroine's father: the employment of a bass, rather than the usual baritone, gives the role increased authority, but he is so fine and resonant a basse chantant that it is surprising that he is so little known. As the anti-hero who forsakes his fiancee (a tiny part to which Nadine Sautereau lends distinction) but finally puts military duty before love—did Delibes, I wonder, take the idea of the off-stage army patrol from Carmen, produced at the same theatre eight years earlier?—Charles Richard starts promisingly but soon shows signs of strain, forcing his tone: he is at his best in the Act 1 ''Fantaisie aux divins mensonges'' and (except for the final top Bs) in the Act 3 ''Viens dans la foret'', but he rushes ''C'est le Dieu de la jeunesse'', and overall is no match for Alain Vanzo, the ideal casting in the Bonynge/Sutherland set on Decca.
The chief focus of interest, of course, is Mado Robin herself, in whose honour this issue has been published (the record company candidly balancing the recording's acknowledged technical shortcomings against her artistry). It is a very French voice, silvery and light—indeed rather thin, with minimal variety of colour (her initial ''Va-t'en!'' to the interloping Gerald would scarcely shoo away a fly)—but with an uncommon radiance in the extreme high register: she delivers a buckshee G sharp in alt. in the Bell song that is really spectacular. But she is sharp at one or two points in Act 1 (as for example in the invocation to Durga) and is nothing like so exact as Sutherland in placing the coloratura of the Bell song, whose final semiquaver runs she either defines ill or omits. It is, in fact, in the quieter, more reflective parts, rather than the virtuosic, that she is most appealing. There is a charming simplicity in her ''Pourquoi dans les grands bois'' and the beautifully scored ''Dans la foret'', and she is touchingly tender in her final ''Tu m'as donne le plus doux reve''; but her one verse of the Act 3 berceuse is really too loud.
This issue will clearly be of interest mainly to Mado Robin fans and to voice fanciers in general: for Delibes's attractive opera as such it offers no challenge to the Bonynge performance, which holds its place very securely and is mostly excellent, even if sight of the libretto is needed to make anything much of Sutherland's words.'