Though Renata Tebaldi is the star-attraction and main selling-point, the better part of this disc lies in the contribution of Louis Quilico. He is at his best, and, as visitors to Covent Garden in that period will know, his best was very good indeed. As a lyric baritone there were few who surpassed him; in later years the voice thickened and his style became relatively coarse, but here, in his prime, he sings scrupulously with warm, steady tone, and acts with conviction. The excerpts from Tosca and Il tabarro are staged, Quilico’s handsome presence giving life to the drama as surely as his voice enriches the music.

Tebaldi’s Tosca, by comparison, is hardly in best voice and gains little from being seen. The previous year, her ‘Vissi d’arte’ had been rapturously greeted on her return to the Met, but this performance conveys nothing of Tosca’s agony and the climax is unimaginative, almost impersonal. Earlier in the programme she sings Rossini’s regatta songs, which really need a more animated style; at least the third brings smiles and a more communicative disposition. The ‘bonus’ items are taken from the American Bell Telephone Hour Series; the CBC concert of March 31, I see, is not listed in the chronology of Carlamaria Casanova’s book on Tebaldi (The Voice of an Angel; Baskerville: 1995).

The films are of quite good quality, both as to sound and sight. The Master of Ceremonies is Boyd Neel, who at that time was head of music at the university in Toronto. An unexpectedly saturnine presence himself, he introduces the Overture to Mascagni’s Le maschera as a witty, Mozartian composition – and he is absolutely right. A charmer, sparkling and inventive, and currently otherwise unavailable.