Search - Mozart, Toscanini :: Die Zauberflote

While the terrible, ill-balanced sound (stemming from a tape dub floating around since the '50s) is compounded by spurious added reverb, this is the only way we can hear how Arturo Toscanini conducted Mozart's final opera in the theater. His tempi can be maddeningly fast, to the point of derailing his singers (poor Julie Ostvath's Queen of the Night, for instance). Yet this set is worth it for Jarmila Novotná's touching Pamina and Alexander Kipnis intoning Sarastro's two arias with penetrating resonance and dignity. --Jed Distler