Speaking of whom: we who followed his Met and studio recording career often speak of Carlo Bergonzi as the finest Verdi tenor stylist, though not the greatest Verdi tenor voice, of the postwar decades. So he resides, in fact, in my live-performance memory. As with Price, we always respected his singing, even of the heaviest Italian roles, despite the voice’s inclination to retreat under pressure—never insecure, never ugly, but also never the winner in competition with large-voiced sopranos (Nilsson, Crespin, Rysanek) or with orchestras at full flood. ^(I) On the other hand, he often displayed more elegance of line, a smoother transition of the passaggio, a more complete control of restrained dynamics, and a more adept handling of lighter roles (e. g., Alfredo, the Duke, Nemorino) than the more lavishly endowed colleagues among spinto and robusto tenors with whom he alternated (Del Monaco, Tucker, Corelli). He had started his professional career as a baritone in 1948, but in balance and timbre his voice did not betray that origin—it had an Italian tenor sound, without question, and he had a good run: his voice changed very little until it began to coarsen some ten or twelve years after this performance. In terms of vocal weight and dramatic thrust, he and Price are a sensible pairing. Here he shows his customary range of relative strengths and weaknesses, though as with Price the weaknesses are mitigated to a degree by the broadcast ambience. However, we will need to allow that smudges of tarnish adhere to his image as stylistic paragon. Where the score reads, dolcissimo and, we would think, with a trace of upward portamento to aid the connection of those first two syllables, “Aida, ove sei tu?“, we hear “Ah-HEE-da, ove sai tu?”, and throughout the afternoon we gather up quite a collection of conveniently weird vowels, aspirated h’s in legato phrases, and bareknuckled final sounding consonants (l’s and r’s) to bump the voice out there.

Bumbry is the Amneris, much younger and with far fewer miles on her  voice than Price. Though she is not yet in recorded competition with herself (the first of her three studio versions, under Zubin Mehta, was made only later that year), like her colleagues in the cast she invited comparison with many established mezzos. Just at the Met over the preceding fifteen years, we’d seen Fedora Barbieri, Giulietta Simionato, Elena Nikolaidi, Rita Gorr, and the Americans Blanche Thebom, Nell Rankin, Irene Dalis, and Regina Resnik.^(II) Gorr was sui generis, her huge, columnar voice structured rather like the Anglo/Northern European contraltos of yore, yet with a brilliance of timbre topped by ringing acuti. The combination gave her pulverizing power but, perhaps in part owing to ill-advised efforts at soprano parts, it didn’t last long. The three Americans were vocally different from the Italian and Greek artists, but were still aspiring to deep-set vocalities, distinctly darker and roughly one full step lower in compass than their soprano counterparts, with well-developed lower registers. Bumbry’s voice was of a different set—bright, open, propulsive, and to the ear, positioned slightly higher. Her lower range was at this stage not especially deep-sounding or overtly chesty, but incorporated a blend that, while not giving her ideal solidity in the lower-middle area, moved easily upward. Her future upward migration to selected soprano roles was foreseeable, and though this Amneris is not a particularly intriguing characterization—just a strong, straightforward, and lively one—her singing is for long stretches the least complicated and most freely released of the principals’. She and Price also give us a reversal of the intended protagonist/antagonist colorations: the mezzo is prevailingly the brighter, and the soprano the duskier-sounding, of the two.^(III)