Recorded during the 1952 Aix Festival, this first complete Tauride recording still packs a punch.

Immediately from the opening, that most remarkable of operatic storm depictions, the dramatic momentum builds up, to be sustained without faltering across the entire span of the four acts. Ponderousness used to be the besetting sin of so-called ‘Classical’ opera; there’s no hint of that here, but neither is there the opposite and equal one of hard driving—shapely lyrical phrasing and sustained dramatic movement go hand in hand. Indeed, the vital instrumental underpinning and theatrically-directed melodic phrasing and support of voices, representative of the best Italian traditions, infuse this Aix performance, undertaken almost entirely by French or native-Francophone singers and players, with a wonderfully unfamiliar warmth of feeling. That makes the set not just ‘historical’ but ‘classic’.