If I were to use one word to describe this performance of Il Trovatore from the Met, it would be aggressive. The house was in a high state of excitement as, a few days earlier, Price and Corelli had made their extremely successful house debuts in these same roles to fantastic acclaim, and the audience is ready with its applause from the get-go. The pace is fast and furious, especially in the choruses, which results in them occasionally becoming unstuck.

The singing too is extremely competitive, with little room for subtlety. I don’t know whether it is the recording, or the transfer but the soloists seem to be closely miked, which picks up a vibrato in Price’s voice I hadn’t been aware of before, and for much of the performance she sounds to me as if she is forcing her essentially lyric instrument. Corelli was never the most subtle of artists, but the general air of competitiveness encourages him to belt out his high notes for all he is worth and, it has to be said, the audience go wild for him.

This generally aggressive atmosphere extends to the other soloists too, who, in any case, are less vocally entitled than Price and Corelli. Irene Dalis is perfectly acceptable, and you’d go a long way to hear her like today, but she is honestly second rung, as is Mario Sereni. They are no match for Giulietta Simionato and Ettore Bastianini, who appear on another live recording from the following year, which also features Price and Corelli. This was from the 1962 summer Salzburg Festival, and is no less exciting, but is conducted much more stylishly by Herbert von Karajan. It was enthusiastically reviewed by Simon Thompson, when first issued and is still available from DG as a download, though the CDs have been withdrawn. If you want Price and Corelli in this opera, then it is definitely the one to go for, and Price sounds glorious here and much more relaxed than she was at the Met. With Simionato, arguably the greatest Azucena of her age and Bastianini in fantastic form, this is a set that should be in every Verdi lovers collection.

No doubt others will just get caught up in the excitement of the performance under review from the Met, but I’m afraid I found it rather vulgar, for which the blame should be left squarely on the shoulders of Fausto Cleva, who, time and again, mistakes speed for excitement.

My preference for the opera would still be Karajan’s first studio recording with Callas a non pareil of a Leonora, but the live Salzburg recording is almost as good, if without the precision of the studio one, with all the principals, including Price and Corelli, in fabulous voice. Truly that one was the night to remember.