EMI: 2127142

Il trittico was first heard in Italy, in Rome, in January 1919. The easy success achieved by Gianni Schicchi wherever it was performed meant that soon theatres were giving it paired with other works. This dismayed Puccini, though later he had to bow to the inevitable. The three operas together, though, have a special unity. Puccini, such a man of the theatre, constructed them in such a way that the theatregoer or listener at home, enjoys the contrast all the more if they are heard in sequence as intended.

These recordings were made at the Rome Opera over three years, and with three conductors. (Gianni Schicchi alone was late enough to be caught in stereo.) They are held together by the casting of Tito Gobbi in the baritone roles in the first and third opera, and by Victoria de los Angeles as the soprano in the second and third.

As Patrick O’Connor’s absorbing note relates, both singers were at the zenith of their careers in the late 1950s. Gobbi first sang in Gianni Schicchi as a beginner in 1939, in the role of Betto di Signa, ‘the poorest of Buoso Donati's relations’. When he was later planning to take on the title-role, he studied the opera with the librettist Forzano, who insisted ‘Our work must be serious. It is for the other people to laugh and enjoy it.’ For Gobbi, the character was essentially ‘A mature man, of course, but with here and there a touch of sharpness, some subtle inflection reminiscent of youthful cheek…still keeping the character of the roguish Florentine boy he once was.’

The recordings have been newly transferred and remastered to ART standard at Abbey Road Studios.