In 1967, we were several years into the FM-stereo “multiplex” mode of transmission. The Met broadcasting team had settled into its new headquarters in the first season at the Lincoln Center house, and I had settled into my routine of fairly regular reel-to-reek tapings. Memory can play us false, but I cannot recall any contemporaneous broadcast of such crudeness. I am apprehensive about the other nine performances in this box commemorative of the 1966-67 season, which includes at least three  extraordinary ones, and others with extraordinary elements. I don’t know whether to blame bad engineering from the get-go, poor quality source material, one or more unmusical ears guiding the “restoration,” or a combination of all three factors. The voices are jammed into our ears and have an “enhanced” sound (I couldn’t find any coherent balance in the Scene 1 duet and terzet for Amneris, Radames, and Aida, for instance); much orchestral texture and detail is lost; and a number of instrumental entrances (like the brass’s announcing the King’s entrance that follows on that same terzet, or the trumpets’ for the Triumphal Scene march) are so blunt and blatant as to sound spliced-in. The conducting of Thomas Schippers is of no help. I often enjoyed his work, but this is just slammed through. The weightier passages (e. g., the build-up to the climax of the Prelude) trudge, while quicker, lighter ones (like the dance of the Moorish slaves in Act II, Scene 1) are whipped through mercilessly. Matters improve as we proceed into the last two acts (where the demands of proportionality and contrast ease), but Schippers never sounds settled into the work, or his orchestra, which sounds thoroughly sick of the piece, re-awakened to its possibilities. So we again have an unhelpful, distortedl framework for our soloists, this time of live performance origin.

And c. 1967, we weren’t comparing Leontyne Price to Blue or Harteros, or for that matter Netrebko. Our ears for the singing of this and other big Verdi roles had been conditioned by the likes of Ljuba Welitsch, Zinka Milanov, Renata Tebaldi, Antonietta Stella, Birgit Nilsson, or, along more lyrical lines, the admirable and enjoyable Gabriella Tucci, as well as the sopranos who had recorded the part, not least among them Price herself. I loved Price’s first recorded Aida (1961, under Solti) when it first came out, but was slightly disappointed at my first live encounter with her in the part, a year or so later. The fresh, feminine beauty of the voice was not in question, nor her general guidance of it, nor her emotional engagement with the character. But beyond a noticeable lessening of overall presence relative to several of those other voices, there was a narrowing of the sound at the top (stunning in the pianissimi, not quite crowning the climaxes at forte), and a comparative weakness, a lack of grounding, at the bottom. So some of the part’s key moments were not quite fulfilled, and I was left with the impression of a full, blooming lyric soprano with a little shortfall at both ends, not of pitch, but of vocal authority. She is still close to her finest on this broadcast. The chest range, while not vibrant and anchored in the best Italian manner, is better organized than it often seemed, and the full-voiced high notes register cleanly (in the confrontation with Amneris, the B-flat at “che mai dicesti? Misera!” and the sustained A at “Vive! ah grazie, o Numi!” pop out thrillingly). Her tendency to “turn over” and darken the midrange, always more pronounced in the heavier roles and eventually leading to a yet greater imbalance between the middle voice and thinning extremes, is evident, and making the weaving of a true legato sometimes uneasy. The final duet, though still sounding “negotiated” at times, is on the whole beautifully sung by both partners.