Jean Brazzi is her Julien. I knew of him by reports from the French houses and of a Glyndebourne production of Werther that was directed by Michael Redgrave, but so far as I’m aware had heard none of his singing. Here, he sounds to have been a good representative of the same type of strong lyric tenor as was André Laroze of the Epic set, though with somewhat more timbral and temperamental variety (the live vs. studio distinction should be kept in mind). His voice is lean, with little of Raoul Jobin’s meat on the bone or Georges Thill’s soaring ease and beauty, but possessed of good balance, timbral clarity, and reliable intonation, and enough metal to surmount the big phrases of the Act 3 duet. And he sounds dramatically alive.

Among the lower-voiced principals we encounter truly distinguished work. In the decade since the Epic recording, Solange Michel’s mezzo had deepened, which probably made life a little tougher for her Charlottes and Carmens, but does nothing but good for her Mother. She doesn’t flinch from the asperity of her confrontations with daughter and husband, and intones the plea in the Couronnement scene with urgency and gravity. (And really, we would like to hear all of this music sometime.) In the Atelier scene of Act 2, it is the contralto of Arlette Chedel, as Gertrude, that emerges from the ensemble of women and girls to greatest effect. And then we have our two basses. I can’t remember a more impressive turn in a cameo role than the one given by the then-young one, van Dam, as the Ragpicker. He’d go on on to sing a splendid Father on the EMI recording a few years later, but here the voice, retaining all its freshness and core and sitting easily in true bass territory, rolls forebodingly through the part’s two brief scenes and gives the character the stature it needs.

About Nicola Rossi Lemeni I hope to write at greater length at some point, possibly in tandem with some words about his wife, Virginia Zeani (they often performed as a team). He opened the 1953-54 season at the Met as Méphistophélès in Peter Brook’s production of Faust (with De los Angeles, Björling, and Merrill, Monteux, cond.), but stayed with the company for only that season. I’ve always thought that a shame, for though Lemeni assuredly had his vocal ups and downs,^(I) and it’s true that through the ’50s and ’60s the Met had Siepi, Hines, Tozzi, and finally Ghiaurov on hand, Lemeni was a striking theatrical performer, more imaginative than any of those just named, and the voice was by no means negligible. I admired his Mephisto, his Becket in Pizzetti’s L’Assassinio nella cattedrale (one of his iconic parts, which he brought to Carnegie Hall in a production by the Empire State Festival), and was happy to hear him in good voice as late as the mid-1980s as Basilio over in Newark.^(II) The Father in Louise became a frequent role for him (notably in San Francisco), well suited to the veristic side of his theatrical temperament, and he is in good form on this occasion, singing in excellent French, shading the Berceuse lovingly, and evading nothing at the top, including the optional G at “voudrais mourir pour eux!” (yes, it’s rather woolly, but substantial). He sings the most vehement final scene I’ve heard (indeed, all concerned create a devastating impact here), so it is all the more regrettable that among the observed cuts is the Father’s “Voir naître une enfant.”