I recall going to hear Callas on her return to Covent Garden as Tosca in 1964. My wife, who hadn't heard the diva in her prime, couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. I had to admit she was very far from being what she was; indeed, I was grievously disappointed by the deterioration in the voice while still being enthralled by the histrionic performance, Act 2 of which is preserved on video. Shortly afterwards these records, Callas's second recording of the role, appeared. Most of us felt it was not so worthy of her as her previous reading, among them Philip Hope-Wallace in these pages. Desmond Shawe-Taylor, in his ''Quarterly Review'', admired the outer acts where the singers seldom come under strain, but found all three were stretched to the limits in Act 2, a view with which I concur.
Callas's interpretation remains very special, even with reduced vocal means, for the subtle inflections she brings to everything: some passages are even more pointedly enunciated than in the 1953 version conducted by de Sabata (also EMI). On the other hand, by 1964 she was tending to distort some vowels, particularly in her lower register, where she was inclined to produce a curiously hollow sound. In spite of the reservations, as a portrait of the jealous, impulsive, ardent Tosca the portrayal is as rounded as one could wish to hear. But 'round' is certainly not the adjective to apply to her singing at forte when you need, as PH-W graphically put it in another Callas context to fasten your seat belts.
Gobbi is also in less easy voice than 11 years earlier, and is inclined to rant on occasion, but who has brought so much nuance and variety of colour to a phrase as he does? Who can convey the character of the satyr so unerringly by tonal means alone? Taddei comes near it on the excellent Karajan 1963 Decca set and has more bloom on his tone, but Gobbi is his superior even so. Bergonzi is the supreme stylist as Cavaradossi. Time and again he sings with a breadth of phrase and an attention to dynamic contrast that make di Stefano (de Sabata), who also sings opposite Leontine Price for Karajan, sound vulgar. Yet it is di Stefano, especially in 1953, who is the more exciting, the more believable lover.
Your ultimate choice may depend on the conducting. Pretre here is coarse and unsteady, absolutely no match for de Sabata in tense excitement or for Karajan's superb control and sensuousness. In sound terms the 1964 EMI recording is almost but not quite the match of the Karajan/Decca. The old 1953 de Sabata mono is constricted, but the orchestral playing is as vital as on any set of this opera—as is the whole performance: it remains the one I shall most frequently pull down from the shelf.'