But it’s impossible to judge Paray from this as opera conductor (he doesn’t seem to have done much in that line), because this isn’t so much a performance of Carmen as an amalgamation of all possible versions of the Carmen Suite, with soloists. While I should guess that 80% of the music is still here, there is almost nothing left of connective tissue (recitative, of course, not dialogue); whole numbers are dropped and extensive internal cuts are made in others; it sounds as if the Moralès, light for that part, also doubles with the two or three lines that are left of Zuniga’s; and so on, so there is no way to pull the scenes together into a cohesive, dramatically paced whole. This does not mean there’s no value in listening to the event, but for me that comes down to a re-awakened interest in Paray as symphonic conductor, and a reminder of singers of significance that don’t often come up on the radar.

First among these is Madeira. An American contralto (b. 1918, d. 1972), she made her Met debut in 1948 as the First Norn in Götterdämmerung—another occasion, as with Bjoerling’s Des Grieux, when I happened to be in attendance. My fourteen-year-old self cannot report back much of evaluative use about that, except for a recollection of the booming volume of her sound in a cast that included, on the female side, Traubel and Harshaw, and of the comment of my father (a singer): “A bit flat on the top there, but that’s a good voice.” For several seasons, Madeira worked her way along in supporting roles (the Madrigal Singer, Marcellina, Berta, Giovanna and then many Maddalenas, Frédéric in Mignon—an incongruous notion—and so on. She was the Suzuki on the Met Record Club Butterfly with Dorothy Kirsten. In time, she acceded to Ulrica, some Carmens, and Klytemnestra, which she sings to powerful effect on the DG recording under Böhm. She sang Carmen at the Aix-en-Provence Festival under Pierre Dervaux in 1957, which was also recorded, and had successes in major roles in Vienna (an Aïda with Rysanek and Hopf circulates) and other European venues. She never quite crashed the top tier at the Metropolitan, but in addition to her smaller roles, I did see her as Erda and Waltraute (both good), and once as Azucena, which I recall as rather wild vocally and dramatically, but impressive for the size and quality of the voice. If I were to place the calibre of her instrument for contemporary operagoers, it would fall somewhere between those of Rachvelishvili in full cry and the latterday Zajick, but with a deeper, more contralto-ish hue.

Beginning with the Aix production, Carmen became one of the roles Madeira was most identified with, and the Paray performance shows why. Her voice sounds fresh and generous, and with the exceptions of a couple of brief passages (e. g., a strangely clumsy “Si tu m’aimes), it’s under good control. She manages to keep up with Paray’s tempo for the Gypsy Song (mad from the get-go), and her characterful inflections, sometimes of a light and nuanced sort that I hadn’t much associated with her, keep us in the picture despite the concert circumstances. (Act 2 shows this most consistently. Examples: “Au quartier . . . pour l’appel,” etc.; “Non, tu ne m’aimes pas,” etc.; “Bel officier,”  etc.) She had a great look for this part, and though she had a tendency to go over the top with her physical characterizations, I’m sure that with a good director she must have been very effective in it.