This version is splendidly sung. Apart from one or two pitch problems from the Duke and the Rigoletto, which should have been rectified, the music is traversed with exemplary precision by voices of the right kind and weight. Unfortunately there has to be more to an account of Rigoletto indeed any Verdi opera, than disciplined and accurate reading of the notes, and it's that extra ingredient I find missing here. Agache, a baritone I have admired inordinately in the theatre and on LaserDisc as Boccanegra (Decca, 5/93), here evinces admiration again for his solid virtues of strong tone and firm line. Vaduva, successful at Covent Garden as Manon (Massenet's) and Antonia, sings a limpid Gilda, one in the tradition of the girl as a child-like victim of misfortune. Leech has all the notes for the Duke's taxing part also a clear, clean definition between and through them: his performance is unfailingly attractive—perhaps too much so for this devil-may-care part.
I was astonished to find that it was nearly four years since I reviewed the last new version, the Chailly, so I thought it was time for a refresher course. In any case I was inclined to take down the older versions to confirm that something was actually missing on the Teldec set. Listen to di Stefano (Serafin) launch ''E il sol dell'anima'' and you immediately note what Leech lacks in ping and character. Hear Callas (Serafin) respond to him and Gilda's infatuation is brought vividly before you in a way Vaduva's somewhat negative interpretation cannot equal. If the sound on that set is too murky, try Pavarotti and Anderson (Chailly) in the same music: similar result with a rather stricter tempo than Serafin's.
Put on Gobbi (Serafin) in ''Cortigiani'' and you find the hunchback's abject pity brought before you in many subtle touches of colour and plangent tone that seem beyond Agache (it's the same story in the Act 1 monologue). Or try Cappuccilli (Giulini) in ''Cortigiani'': here is an intensity of tone and a breadth of line beyond even Gobbi. After Gilda reappears in shock after her seduction, go to Dessi (Muti), so tender and appealing, if discolouring her top notes, and the fierce Zancanaro—more immediately recorded than Vaduva and Agache—and you hear the genuine voice of biting vengeance.
In that last example you also note how Muti with a superior orchestra (what a plaintive oboe at the start of ''Tutte le feste''!) moulds the music more significantly than Rizzi and his WNO Orchestra. Rizzi's conducting is in the modern mould of both Muti and Chailly, direct and not keen to yield to his singers' whims or needs, not giving them or the music the extra room to breathe allowed by Serafin and Giulini. Rizzi is attentive to detail but doesn't find quite the response given by the La Scala players for Muti or the Vienna Philharmonic for Giulini. Muti also scores, as does Chailly, in having an Italian chorus, more authentic in sound than their Welsh brothers.
Teldec win points with their casting of the subsidiary roles. Ramey is a secure, saturnine Sparafucile, Larmore a sensual warm Maddalena, Miles a suitably implacable and ferocious Monterone. Even Marullo benefits from the strong singing of the up-and-coming British baritone Peter Sidhom, surely himself a Rigoletto of the near future. But, excellent as they all are, nobody buys a set of this work for the singers of those parts.
I felt the rather empty sound of Cardiff's Brangwyn Hall emphasized the sense of a concert rather than an opera-house recording, but the performance certainly gains in dramatic feeling as it progresses and by Act 3 one has come to appreciate the notable assets of Agache's almost too noble-sounding Rigoletto, Vaduva's affecting Gilda and Leech's well-groomed Duke. But not quite enough is done to dislodge old favourites.
Serafin remains hors concours—but the age of the recording will tell against it for many buyers also it suffers from disfiguring cuts. I may have underrated the Muti when it first appeared. In spite of a Duke who is less than ingratiating, it has the essence of Italianita about it in an interpretation alertly yet sympathetically controlled by Muti, who as ever gives a Verdi score a sense of diversity within an essential unity. The Giulini, best sung all-round, is perhaps a deeper, more considered reading but without quite the life of the Muti. June Anderson, Pavarotti and Chailly's buoyant approach still appeals. The long-standing virtues and recommendation of Serafin and Giulini remain; Muti's taut approach and vital recording deserve more appreciation than they may have had. The new issue is a well-prepared addition to the set's discography but in the final analysis not quite in the class of some of its competitors.'