COMPOSERS: Various
LABELS: Nimbus Prima Voce
PERFORMER: Adelina Patti (soprano)
CATALOGUE NO: Nl 7840/41 ADD mono (2 discs)
That mining the archives can be immense fun is well illustrated by listening to French baritone Victor Maurel’s uproarious, though superbly articulated, 1907 rendering of ‘Quand’ero paggio’ (Falstaff ) on Nimbus’s The Era of Adelina Patti, with its stanzas interspersed with enthusiastic shouts and applause.
Nimbus brings the voice into immediate proximity via a technical process that works particularly well with acoustic recordings. Maurel (Verdi’s first Iago) rubs shoulders with Patti herself (frail but delicate), the astonishing 80-year-old Lucien Fugère (you’d never guess his age from his singing), and many others, including Nellie Melba. Robert Cowan