Here’s a Now-and-Then difference that may shock some younger readers (and this means nearly all of you): Like several other great singers, Ezio Pinza never learned to read music. In an early chapter of his autobiography, he recalls the despair he felt on being given the chance to audition for Toscanini at La Scala for the role of Pogner, of which he knew nothing, and the “hellish” week of intensive work with two demanding assistant conductors, Calusio and Votto, before being deemed ready for the ordeal. Of course, such preparation would have included far more than just learning the notes. But it had to start there. He was still at a loss to jump in many years later, at a first reading with Richard Rodgers and Mary Martin for South Pacific. So all his roles, which extended beyond the standard Italian and French parts to (among many) Boris Godunov (in Italian), the Father in Louise, King Marke, and even Golaud (though he swore off the last after one season) were taught to him by ear. No doubt they were woodshedded with répétiteurs, but at least in the cases of Walter and Tullio Serafin, they were intensively coached by the conductors themselves. I’ll write another time about what some of the ear-vs.-eye advantages of “bad musicianship” can be. But note that no loss of mutual respect between conductor and singer was entailed, at least with a vocal and musical talent of Pinza’s dimensions.

A great deal has been written about the Don’s lack of a major aria and, in consequence, his supposed shortfall of presence at the heart of this masterpiece. I address the matter briefly in Opera as Opera, and won’t belabor it here except to say that the answer to the presumed problem lies with the performer of the role, and that Pinza solved it. Either there is a Don with a great voice (bass or baritone—but baritones are at the disadvantage of never being able to exploit their upper range), a dashing, electric presence and sexual allure, plus a stylistic instinct—or there isn’t, and for all the magnificent music other characters get to sing and the delicious scenes they get to play, the fate of any performance inconveniently depends in large measure on the presence of these rare attributes in the title role. Possessing them, Pinza established for himself a level of stardom, extending into the culture at large, not approached by any low-voiced male since his time, and no matter who else was in a Don Giovanni cast, there was no doubting who was the opera’s vital force.

A notorious feature of the 1942 broadcast (connoisseurs were still passing reptilian comments about it when I joined collectors’ circles fifteen years later) was the unusual appearance of Alexander Kipnis as Leporello (Two Performances Only!, since Salvatore Baccaloni was in those years the go-to basso buffo), and the presumed mano à mano between the two great basses. The most obvious sign of that is in Kipnis’ imitations of the quick Pinza vibrato when Leporello is disguised as the Don. Ironically, this is an element of Pinza’s vocality that Kipnis would have found himself fortunate to possess, and he does his best singing of the afternoon when playing it straight while employing it. But as one can sometimes hear in Vienna State Opera fragments of the 1930s, Kipnis, unsurpassed as Gurnemanz and Sarastro and a Lieder singer of vocal and interpretive depth (however peculiarly accented his German at times), could turn to unmusical and unstylish exaggeration when faced with an overtly theatrical role outside his comfort zone, like the Gounod Méphistophélès. That happens for goodly stretches here, not only when he carries the imitation to an adolescent slapstick level or when he forces for Ukrainian Italianità in recitative, but in sections of an unevenly sung “Madamina” as well.