Adventures of Odysseus (Classic Literature with Classical Music)

Back at the dawn of the LP era, Verdi fans who wanted to hear anything he composed before Rigoletto usually had to resort to the Cetra label, which assiduously turned out recordings of Italian operas--usually from radio broadcasts--that bigger companies ignored. The performances tended to be provincial in quality, the text often was seriously cut, and the sound engineering was primitive. But until the 1960s Cetra offered the only Nabucco, Ernani, or Luisa Miller you could find. Those old Cetras have been superseded now and are of primarily archaeological interest, but this one deserves some attention for Fernando Previtali's forceful conducting and a generally interesting cast--notably Gino Penno. Penno had a relatively short career and is nearly forgotten today, but in 1951 he knew and demonstrated how Ernani should be sung. --Joe McLellan