It's an excellent performance, and if you want the four-act version with Steber, Elias, Gedda, and Tozzi, you'll now have to buy this, since the RCA has disappeared. The foursome are as fine here as on the original, with a top note or two from Steber a bit harsher--but since this was taped live, it offers even more urgency and theatricality in the delivery of all concerned. Tozzi in particular makes a better impression as the Old Doctor, his last-act aria especially moving. Malaniuk sings in heavily accented English as the Old Baroness, but it's hardly out of place and her imperiousness matches Resnik's. Dimitri Mitropoulos has at the end of his baton the magnificent Vienna Philharmonic, which plays Barber's rich, post-Straussian, Hollywood-like score brilliantly. The recording includes a brief interview, in both German and English, with Samuel Barber.

In sum, the Chandos recording is superb, and given one's druthers, I'd say that only the Chandos and either this set or the RCA are necessary. There is stage noise and occasional overload, but these are not seriously detrimental. Vanessa may be tonally and dramatically "old-fashioned", but so are the pleasures it gives.

--Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com