The star of the series, though, is Eleanor Steber. She has four volumes to herself, and turns up as a guest on Warren’s Volume 2 (a splendid “Ernani, involami“). Steber is not much more subtle than her male colleagues, and only a little less macho. But she is always expressive and musical, and the utter capability of the voice—its full, warm quality, its well-equalized scale and broad dynamic range, its firm bravura trills—is extraordinarily consistent here. Her “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” is among the truly touching moments on these tapes, and her ascents to the C in the Inflammatus from Rossini’s Stabat Mater are among the truly thrilling, while her “Addio del passato” shares with Dorothy Kirsten’s Fanciulla poker-game scene the Firestone Reasonably Convincing Acting Award. The Steber “Opera and Oratorio” tape, the series’ longest, is an especially good buy.

A couple of caveats: in general, the later the date, the glitzier and emptier the presentation and the more manicured the performances. Though you may want Kirsten in Fanciulla or Sutherland’s “Bel raggio,” by and large the final season (tape now, not kinescope) is to be avoided. A Corelli/Tebaldi tape is a special disappointment, the former’s segment destroyed by ghastly lip-synching, the latter’s finding her in solid enough vocal form for three Puccini standbys, but so constrained by conditions that little of her performing personality comes across. Finally, the program’s fairly relentless Christianizing goes rather far with Mr. Hines (in imposing voice), who not only sings hymns but alters lyrics in evangelical interests, and finally proffers a lengthy chunk of his treacly “I Am the Way,” a sort of Hollywood Passion, with guess who unblushingly self-cast as Guess Who. Even the least of these tapes, though, offers some vocal bread and butter—mighty fine chewing as we rise from our contemporary banquet of cloying condiments.

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NEXT TIME: First up this fall is the Met’s new production of Verdi’s Macbeth, with Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen in the leading roles, Louisa Proske directing (her house debut), and Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting. That’s coming in late September, so a second- or third-week of October publishing date is targeted. Next up will come Missy Mazzoli’s setting of Lincoln in the Bardo, based on George Saunders’ novel of the same name. Meanwhile, other possible subjects are brewing. AND: a reminder to save the evening of September 24 at 7:30, when Will Crutchfield and I will be discussing the place of opera in our rapidly changing, post-everything society (“Going—or Gone?“) on a Björling Society videocast. Details when we get closer to the date.

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