Caballé is in remarkable voice. Wait until you hear the floated lines and richly colored vocal textures in her Viennese operetta excerpts.

This is an unusual concept, and for the most part its charm manages to carry the day. What we have is a recording of one of the most famous of Spanish sopranos, Montserrat Caballé, and her twenty-five-year-old daughter at the beginning of her career. It must give a mother a remarkable feeling to make a recording such as this. If it seems to smack of being a gimmick, not only has Caballé earned the right to a gimmick or two, but she and her daughter manage to pull it off on musical grounds.

Caballé is in remarkable voice; this recording was made in March 1995, when she was about sixty-two, and we are required to make no allowances for age in order to enjoy her singing. Her tone is steady, her fabled pianissimo is still at her disposal, and if just a bit of juice is gone from the voice it remains a warm and glowing instrument capable of giving more sensual pleasure than just about any voice before the public today. In her Bellini solo she recalls her prime years, and I don't think I've heard a more seductive, richly colored recording of Gounod's lovely Sappho aria. Caballé sets quite a slow tempo in the Gounod, and then manages to sustain her tone and vocal energy in such a way as to make it convincing.

If one were to be purely objective, one would admit that it is too early for Marti to be making records; she was not quite twenty-five when this disc was made, and she has not fully developed her own vocal personality yet. Having said that, though, one would also note that she sings very well, and at times she will turn a phrase or emit a vocal color that vividly recalls her mother. In the numbers they do together (particularly the lovely zarzuela duets) their voices and their musical approaches blend perfectly. In her solos, Marti displays a lovely lyric soprano, with a secure technique. “Caro nome“ is a stretch, though, and at this time strains her resources. She needs to learn to sing with the distinctive individuality that her mother brings to everything—the Giuditta aria has been sung a lot more seductively than it is here—but she certainly gives pleasure. And as for the venerable Caballé, wait until you hear the floated lines and richly colored vocal textures in her Viennese operetta excerpts! They alone are worth the price of the disc.

The sound is okay, though a bit hard on Caballé's voice at full tilt, the orchestral playing more than adequate, and the conducting quite sympathetic. What is frustrating is the absence of translations (we are given the original texts for the Spanish numbers only—translations for nothing), and the gushy and dumb notes {Gianni Schicchi is not a “very rarely performed opera“). Caballé fans will not be disappointed with this disc, and other lovers of good singing should probably seek it out as well.

-- Henry Fogel, FANFARE [9/1996]