I suppose every generation of serious opera lovers looks back to the previous one, and holds that up as the period of The Golden Age of Singing. Thanks to the efforts of Nimbus Records, who have released a two-volume set of four CDs of arias from mainly turn-of-the-century artists, we can travel back to an era that has receded beyond the modern age to conjure up the ghosts of singers. These range from the megastars of that era - Caruso and Melba amongst them - through singers of lesser renown too, for want of a better word, warblers whose styles and techniques have been replaced in more recent time by a greater truth and drama.

What is fascinating when listening to these bygone voices is how much singing style has changed...

Not all of the tracks on the CDs are, from an artistic point of view, worthy of preservation: in amongst the real gems is a fair amount of singing that ranges from mediocre to bad. What is fascinating when listening to these bygone voices is how much singing style has changed from what was acceptable at the turn of the century, and meeting - almost face on - singers directly linked to the composers of the 19th century. We can hear Adelina Patti (in her 60s but still elegiacally moving) singing Come per sereno, the same Patti who infuriated Rossini with her extravagant decorations, and was adored by Verdi, who patiently coached her as his Aida. There is Caruso, a contemporary of Puccini and creator of Dick Johnson in La Fanciulla del West; Emmy Destinn and Geraldine Farrar who created Puccini's Giorgetta and Suor Angelica in the world premiere of Il Trittico at the Metropolitan Opera in 1917; Nellie Melba, whose singing is rather disappointing, given the fame and adulation bestowed upon her during her lifetime; and Francesco Tamagno, the definitive Otello of his generation.

To modern ears, the self-indulgent and over-melodramatic delivery of many of these singers is the operatic equivalent of the eye-rolling, hand-waving excesses of the silent-film movie stars. But like those actors, these singers communicate both an individuality and charisma that transcends any discussion of what is tasteful. Not all the singing is over-emphatic: Mario Ancona's performance of A Tanto Amor (La Favorita) is an object lesson in Italian legato and bel canto and it is difficult to surpass the singing of Tamagno in Niun mi tema, which combines delicacy, lyricism, power, and a real sense of a man beaten by his destiny-the moment of catharsis (in its Shakespearean meaning) is so evident in this singing that the disc is worth buying for this alone.

When listening to the tracks by Galli-Curci, Barrientos, Tetrazzini, Eames and even Melba (as Gilda), it is interesting to note how soprano coloratura singing was approached in the era before Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland definitively revolutionized the repertory from the 1950s onwards. As interpreted by them, the arias by Thomas, Donizetti, Verdi and Rossini are dispatched in a robotic, monochromatic, and often shrill and grating soprano, with almost no sense of either taste or feeling. As Callas and Sutherland (and still later Marilyn Horne, Montserrat Caballé and Teresa Berganza) would show, coloratura singing is only truly virtuoso and moving if it arises out of that which observes the rules of legato and interpretation, thus clothing the heroine with a cloak of psychological plausibility. Callas of course took this to the limit, to the extent that the colours and dramatic truths she finds in Lucia di Lammermoor were foreign even to Donizetti himself!

The technical apparatus of these singers is superior to those of the stereo era, particularly among the men, and most evidently among the tenors. I have already mentioned Tamagno, whose humanity as Otello is an antidote to the crude and relentless, brute strength of singers such as Del Monaco in the 1950s and beyond (Domingo excepted). Anselmi's tenore di grazia, as heard in Sogno soave e casto (Don Pasquale) is exquisite: his breath control throughout the range is phenomenal and, in this most difficult of arias, diminuendos above the stave are executed without any effort. The same is true of De Lucia's singing of Des Grieux's dream. The tone is youthful, wide-eyed, but masculine, a level of singing that cannot be bettered. Amongst the basses, it is refreshing to hear Basilio's Calunnia aria sung by Didur as an object lesson in Rossinian bel canto, rather than as a mere comic scena sung by a bass beyond his prime but still game to milk the gallery for all it's worth.

So, was the period 1900-1920 the Golden Age of Singing? At its best, it probably was: as the century evolved, and tastes and conventions changed, the mannered self-indulgences and over-emphatic declarations that spoiled the essential sincerity of the composers represented on these discs gave way to a gradual restraint that reached some kind of apotheosis in the 1970s and 80s with the bloodless singing of the "authentic early music" school. For this generation the Golden Age was probably the post-war period up to the late 1960s and early 70s, when opera was dominated by great singers such as Callas, Sutherland, Freni, Nilsson, Price, Tebaldi, and Scotto (to name but a few). But all took the best qualities of those represented on these discs and refined an art form for a new generation. To whom does the next generation of singers look to for inspiration? Since this is not a reassuring thought, they would be well advised to listen to this collection from Nimbus. It is an essential part of any opera lover's record collection.

Allan Beavis