Anyone who can give such a hauntingly beautiful account of the vocal version of Fibich's Poeme as does Novotna on her 1935 Parlophone record deserves immortality. It was pure joy to have this chance to listen to it again after a break of some years. It is just one of many pleasures on this issue—in a few cases the first appearance—of the Czech soprano's recordings of her own country's music. Those who have never heard her before are in for many revelations, besides the Fibich, if they invest in this well-filled Supraphon homage to the Prague-born singer. I suppose next in line for their attention is her 1942 account of Marenka's aria from The bartered bride, taken from a broadcast in the singer's own archive. Now an exile Novotna pours into this music not only all Marenka's feelings of betrayal, but also a sense of loss at being away from home: only Popp's version among the 'moderns' (EMI, 4/89—nla) comes as near conveying this interior feeling and she isn't blessed with quite Novotna's warmth of tone. After that, listen to Dvorak's Songs my mother taught me, a hackneyed piece, here sung (on a 1945 RCA disc) with a picture-cleaning spontaneity.
Novotna began her career in her native country when only 17. At 19 she was recording, on late acoustics. Here we are vouchsafed an appealing aria from The dog heads (sic) by Kovarovic, a turn-of-the-century Czech composer, and Martinka's Act 2 aria from Smetana's The kiss, a piece for which the young soprano's somewhat untutored, girlish tone is well suited, a lark song ''full of trills and melismatic flourishes'' as John Tyrell describes it in the New Grove Dictionary of Opera (Macmillan: 1992). Truth to tell, Novotna sounds happier 19 years later singing Vendulka's better-known aria, a lullaby from Act 1.
The centrepiece of the disc is the famous recording of the Songs of Lidice that Novotna made in 1942 for RCA with Jan Masyryk, the exiled Czech Prime Minister, as moving as ever heard across the years. One of these ''I saw my country die'' (''Umrem, umrem'') became almost her theme-song and there are two further performances here, both with orchestral backing, taken off the air in 1945 and 1948. The last track has the diva, about to retire, singing ''O silver moon'' from Rusalka in 1956, a full 30 years after her first recording and betraying, at 49, no sign of the passing years and singing with all the old warmth and appealing ardour. I cannot urge this disc too strongly on anybody who wants a feast of richly individual singing. Now we need, as a complement, from Pearl (who issued sometime ago a two-disc LP—GEMM261/2, nla), a representation of Novotna's Italian and French repertory.'