Guadagno's Boheme for Koch Schwann is based on a production at the Verona Arena. It was recorded not in that vast amphitheatre but in Frankfurt, indoors by the sound of it, during a guest appearance there by the Verona company. An audience was present, but commendably refrained from applause until the ends of acts. It is mainly of interest as what will presumably be Katia Ricciarelli's last recording of Mimi. Her characteristic floated high notes, pure in quality and beautifully hushed, do not come as easily as they once did, and her lower register has retreated somewhat, but her performance retains a good deal of her delicacy of phrasing and purity of line: her ''Donde lieta usci'' is very touching. Which is just as well, since there are not many recordings of this opera in which it is more painfully obvious that even a poetic Mimi can be gravely let down by her tenor or her conductor. In ''Addio, dolce svegliare'' phrase after phrase from Ricciarelli has to start from scratch each time because the intervening lines from Araiza have been, almost without exception, insensitively loud or ugly of sound (the voice now sounds worn, rather precarious and without charm). In ''Sono andati?'' she works very hard to shepherd her low notes and compensate for the fact that there are some phrases that it would be unwise now to attempt to sing quietly, but her efforts are almost undermined by Guadagno's stodgily impassive direction of the orchestral introduction.
Antonucci is a good Marcello, Mariotti one of those rare Benoits who actually sing their notes, but against these must be set a dull Musetta, a plummy Colline and many moments of imprecise ensemble. Pretty well everyone except Ricciarelli sings loudly throughout, as though they were still in the Arena. The recording is adequate, but the crowd detail at the Cafe Momus is rather dully flattened out. For Ricciarelli's admirers only, but even they will find her 1979 recording with Sir Colin Davis a far worthier memory of her.
Far more care has been taken over Nagano's version for Erato, and I do not just mean matters of ensemble and balance. The entire cast seems to be taking care, and although only one of the principals is Italian far more is made of the text than in Guadagno's reading. The surprise here for me was Te Kanawa. I had thought of her as probably somewhat too grande a Dame for Mimi, but although the voice is perhaps a shade opulent for the role she compensates with a touching vulnerability and intimacy of manner and an obvious sympathy for the character: not many Mimis have the sense, as she does, to add the slightest hint of a rueful, embarrassed laugh to the concluding line (''I'm just a neighbour, making an ill-timed nuisance of myself'') of ''Si, mi chiamano Mimi''. Leech as Rodolfo is not really an Italianate tenor, nor does he often sing quietly, but he too compensates, with convincingly youthful ardour and sincerity. Gustafson is miscast as Musetta (not very idiomatic, not much character), but the rest of the cast is pretty good, and although Nagano is at times less than ideally eloquent, his ear for detail is acute. Neither of these is a top-drawer Boheme; Nagano's place is in the second drawer down, Guadagno's very much lower. '