The Mad Scene from Lucia di Lammermoor becomes her calling-card for this recital and it is a riveting performance. During the last half-century we have got used to hearing more dramatic approaches to this role – in the wake of Callas and others. Before that it was largely the territory of light coloraturas: Patti, Sembrich, Melba and Tetrazzini. The only complete recording before the advent of the LP, an early 1940s Cetra-set, had Lina Pagliughi as the heroine. Mady Mesplé is in this illustrious company. Her voice is slim but has all the lustre and agility needed. She sings with deep feeling; her duet with the flute is delicious. The final note of the aria proper is plumb in the middle and is greeted with hysterical ovations, lasting a couple of minutes before she is allowed to continue and conclude the scene with Spargi d’amaro pianto. The sound is good and spacious.

The 1961 mono sound for La cambiale di matrimonio is more congested and here we meet a pert soubrette with more acid in the voice. The finale of the aria was, by the way, recycled for Rosina’s cavatina in Il barbiere di Siviglia.

Her Caro nome comes from a Rigoletto performance in Geneva. The recording is fairly distant but the balance is still good. This is a superb reading with admirable voice control – no wonder the applause breaks loose before the aria is finished.

Mesplé’s most famous role was no doubt Lakmé, which she sang over 145 times. It is good to have the Bell Song in a radio recording. The pinpoint accuracy in the runs and her birdlike trill are impressive features but the reverse side of the coin is the arrival of a more tremulous tone than in some of the other excerpts. Here I prefer her in the complete recording with Alain Lombard, made a couple of years later.

Her recording of Yniold’s scene from the fourth act of Pelléas et Mélisande is the earliest example of her art on this disc, set down when she was not yet 27. It could be argued that she is too bright-toned, but she can soften the voice for greater intimacy and the purity is a treat in itself. Grétry’s operas occasionally have an outing and Léonore’s aria from L’Amant Jaloux is a welcome rarity, even though the whole recording is over-bright with glassy string tone.

Caroline’s aria from Le Toréador is nothing less than “Twinkle, twinkle, little star”, with each stanza more and more adventurously embellished. Her two male partners are accomplished singers but it is Mesplé’s fireworks, especially the last two minutes, that steal the show.

I have heard more formidable Queens of the Night – she is supposed to be an evil woman – but few who have sailed up into the stratosphere with such ease – Margareta Hallin and Sumi Jo, possibly Rita Streich come to mind. Who else has twittered through Zerbinetta’s Grossmächtige Prinzessin more effortlessly? This recording from Geneva is, unfortunately marred by a less than well defined recording.

Mado Robin was the undisputed French Queen of Coloratura until her untimely death in 1955. During the last 15–20 years Natalie Dessay has occupied a similar position, but the gap of more than thirty years between them was filled by Mesplé with the same unfailing accuracy and greatness.

The present compilation of excerpts from some of her greatest roles is a worthy document of her excellence. We have to make do without texts and translations but we are at least vouchsafed an appreciation by André Tubeuf and a more role-specific biography by Jean-Louis Dutrong.

- Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International