Hello again Mr Andre! I know you posted the 1967 CG Norma from Nov. 30th. Would you also happen to have the December 8th BBC broadcast you mentioned? I've only heard it in extremely poor sound. If so, could you please post it? Thanks. :)

I understand we get to appreciate this fine music paid for by advertisers who seem quite unaware or care of their insensitive timing of ads(that no one listens to,anyway) I must say there are better ones with the timing. Maybe time for premium ( ultimate goal of advertisers)Dislike how it takes you away from the immediacy of this beautiful rendition.

Thank you so much for posting! I always wondered whether someone had recorded it. I was there, age 18 and it is still one of my fond memories of the old Met. And preserved in such good sound quality!

Thank you for this upload. Because other or previous upload by somebody or any pirate version had a lot of hiss noise and this posting does not. Also one disappointment is of lack of preludio. But it's OK the main performance is great.

I adore Sokolov's playing, but I find it incomprehensible that someone who has dedicated himself to music with such fanatical brilliance for so long could be so careless about ensuring that it's properly recorded! (I haven't listened to this yet -- but "audience recording" is what you got with punk bands at CBGB's in the 1970s! Some were great, some useless.) Generally I find Sokolov's live performances much more rewarding than his studio work -- not that there's all that much of it -- and I'd guess I'm not alone in that feeling. So if he can't be bothered with organizing proper recordings of his performances, why not the people around him? (Agents, managers, record execs, mistresses, offspring, pets, etc.?) I find this genuinely puzzling. Maybe someone could clue me in?

This was the broadcast after which Scotto and Pavarotti had a huge blow- out because he took extra solo bows. The blow out was featured in a documentary that chronicled the making of this production.

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Review in Opera Magazine by Arthur Bloomfield "The season at the WAR MEMORIAL OPERA HOUSE opened on September 7 with La Gioconda. Nine days later it was delivered to Europe, live , by TV satellite. That meant an audience of millions for San Francisco's operatic export, which was decked out in an expensive. grandly-scaled, very Venetian new production - is there any other way to do Gioconda? There was nothing forced about Renata Scotto' Callas-like vocalization. which came naturally out of the perilous situations in which the character repeatedly finds herself. In general her singing had a youthful sound - Gioconda need not be a shrew - and it splintered with emotion at the right fracture points. Luciano Pavarotti, taking on Enzo for the first time ( it was also Scotto's first Gioconda)., gave evidence of an increasing dramatic commitment, and even if his battle with pasta and polenta has not entirely been wo he now moves with grace and restraint and resists the eternal temptation to make arm signals at other than climactic or pivotal points in the text. I used to find the sound of his voice a little hard but have now made my peace with it and bow before the unassailable Pavarotti assets: his unique timbre.,so finely-drawn and penetrating, the long line of his phrasing., the intensity, the ringing clarity of his singing. ln 'Cielo e mar' his phrasing was contemplative without being the least bit mannered., and wonderfully ardent: much of his performance., in fact, revealed a hero transfixed by love. Lorman Mittelmann. the Barnaba. gave us a t least a hint of the old-time all-American Leonard Warren sound, vigorous, resonant. a touch nasal. Laura was sung by the Po lish mezzo Stefania Toczyska.,making her US debut: she gave an authoritative performance but not one to endear her to every stall s and gallery fan. The voice is something of an Old World curiosity: sultry. crusty. maternal-sounding yet not devoid of a certain flaming . middle-European sensuality., a bit thin but suave in a Slavonically ltalianate way. She does not, in short., erase memories of Stignani and Castagna, but her singing has line., thrust and good intonation , she uses her chest register with discretion as well as force, and she knows where the climaxes are. I also enjoyed the swagger and almost comic-strip relish with which Ferruccio Furlanetto, a handsome new bass , threw himself into the ironic-sadistic roulade of Alvise. Margarita Lilova a local favour te rejoined the company after several seasons' absence for a lush-sounding La Cieca. There was nothing to question in Bruno Bartoletti 's admirably shaped, un-sentimental but atmospheric conducting and Lotfi Mansouri turned the opera's cast of melodramatic creatures into something resembling real people, but the town was understandably divided over Margo Sappington's very 1970s Dance of the Hours, a daffy, deliberately camp and nonsensical romp. Kinky as well as refi ed, it was probably all wrong for l 7th-century Venice but it was fun and impeccably danced.

Who’s the whole cast? Thanks so much for this!

The best singers and the best performance. BUT a lady's (next to the recorder) constant coughing was also recorded. Very annoying.

Wonderful recording! Joan was in her fantastic 70s voice, huge sound!!! so beautiful

💯💯👍

REVIEW of the June 26 1966 Performance, from Opera Magazine, by Harold Rosenthal Bellini’s Romeo and Juliet opera contains some of the most moving and beautiful music the composer wrote, and the scoring and often exciting use of the orchestra came as a welcome surprise. One wonders whether the reason for the virtual neglect of the opera has been that audiences steadfastly refused to accept a female Romeo, coupled with the fact that for years the happy ending to the work from Vaccai’s opera on the same subject was always given - a custom that was apparently begun by Malibran. Whatever the causes of the work having been neglected for so long, it was decided when it was revived at La Scala last season to restore Bellini’s original ending, and to have Romeo sung by a tenor. This was the production that was brought to the Holland Festival. Bellini wrote I Capuleti for the Teatro la Fenice in Venice, where it was first performed in March 1830 - the same year as La Sonnambula and the year before Norma. The subject was suggested to Bellini by Giuditta Grisi, elder sister of the more famous G iu lia ; and it was Giuditta who created the part of Romeo with Maria Caradori-Allan as Juliet, and Lorenzo Bonfigli as Tebaldo. The oft-repeated statement that Giulia Grisi sang Juliet at the premiere, found in Larouse, the early editions of Grove and other source books, and further perpetuated by the present writer in the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, is a fiction. The role of Romeo attracted many great singers - Pasta, Malibran, Johanna Wagner, Wilhemine Schroder-Devrient who impressed Wagner in the role, Pauline Viardot and in our day Giulietta Simionato, and it would have been interesting to hear and see what one of today’s great mezzos would have made of the part. I admit that the original duets for Romeo and Juliet (soprano-mezzo) did not seem to suffer when sung by a soprano and tenor, though one missed the wonderful blend of two female voices for which Bellini knew so well how to write. It was when we came to the duets for Romeo and Tybalt (mezzo and tenor) that the voices of two tenors singing together sounded most un-Bellinilike. It was not that the two singers, Giacomo Aragall (Romeo) and Luciano Pavarotti (Tybalt) were not vocally equipped to sing this kind of music - they were - but the timbre of the voices seemed wrong. Giacomo Aragall possesses a fine, ringing tenor voice, but I have still to hear him give a thrilling performance. It was Luciano Pavarotti as Tybalt that really stole the vocal honours, and his cavatina ‘E serbato a questo acciaro' rightly earned for him one of the evening's biggest ovations. Margherita Rinaldi displayed exactly the same qualities and faults as Juliet as she had as Carolina in II Matrimonio Segreto at Glyndebourne last summer - a great deal of natural charm, some stylish and attractive singing marred by a tendency to become strident at the top of the voice. Mario Petri as Capulet showed that he still has the personality and dramatic if not vocal ability to dominate the stage ; and Walter Monachesi gave a sharply-etched performance as Lorenzo (Friar Lawrence). The revelation of the evening was the young conductor Claudio Abbado, who was in full command of pit and stage - he even made the very operatic chorus from Bologna sing well. Not since I first heard an opera conducted by Giulini have I have been so impressed by an Italian conductor. Like Giulini, Abbado breathes with his singers. Marcello Aliprandi’s production was, except for the impossible chorus and the hilarious battle scene, tasteful and to the point. All in all a most enjoyable evening and a pleasure to become acquainted with a work which I for one would very much like to hear again. H.D.R.

Astonishing - two great tenors in a duet.

Just out of curiosity, did Caballe step in for Sutherland? Huguette Tourangeau was a frequent collaborator with Sutherland. In addition throughout Sutherland's career, Bonygne was almost exclusively her conductor.

I was there opening night. There was some carping in the local press about casting Dame Joan in an operetta - claimed it was 'like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut'!

Dame Joan is in glorious voice for this performance. This should be released commercially. Really magnificent!

Thank you. What's the exact date of the performance ?

Is there a cast list?

Chi e Masetto, Theodor Uppman? E il "maestro suggeritore"?

BRAVI TUTTI.....from Acapulco!

I attended one of the season's performances with this same cast. Caballe was on crutches, so her entrances and exits were sensibly rearranged, but she sang superbly (as did the rest of this stellar cast) and for once the auto-da-fe scene produced a great wall of flames at the top of the arena. I haven't seen any other production to match it.

Thank you for posting this wonderful operetta with Dame Joan in.

I was in the chorus for this.

Wonderful! Thank you!

Thank you so much!

Thank you so much. Best wishes from Brasil.

Joan is fantastic but what a ridiculous idea to have baritone Pieter van der Stolk sing Danilo! He sounds like a goat. I heard him live in the Australian production in Melbourne and he well nigh ruined it. His vibrato is the equivalent of a goat bleating.

At last! Have been wanting to hear this! Thanks so much for making it available.

Got it! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

Благодарю!

Mr. Akai, dont worry, I will be back soon!🐻🐻

Pudo haber sido la más grande soprano dentro de su registro, sin embargo, el fantasma de Callas la llevó a cantar papeles que no eran apropiados para su voz.

Hello Andre! It's been a while, hope all is well! Would you happen to have the 1976 SF Merry Widow by any chance? If so plz post it! Thanks! :3

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Sutherland, Horne, and Bonynge are all excellent here.

Ugh. Sorry, but this was conducted way too fast. Have never heard the work performed at such fast a pace. The decision seems very much out of character for Kleiber, a conductor known for his fastidious preparation, often with spectacular results to match. Agree with the commenter who wrote that apparently Kleiber needed to rush it to get to the pub.

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Sutherland was unbelievable. Her voice and technique comes only once in several Centuries. She's by far the greatest coloratura I've ever heard. And I've been watching opera since the 1960's. Domingo was in his greatest voice, and nearly matched her with every opulent note!

Vintage Live Classical....the best recording of Puritani I have heard since the Serafin conducted '52 recording with Callas / di Stefano....Pavarotti's high note in " A Te A Caro" is exceptional.

Manca Letizia Giuliani!

It’s just amazing the people out there who question the sheer massive amount of power of that voice. What’s wrong with them?

THE GLORY DAYS OF OPERA AUSTRALIA. SUTHERLAND AND CO DIVINE!!!

I saw Cossutta's first Otello at the ROH which is also on KZbin. and I saw all these performances. Chiara wonderful,pity she only sang this and Liu in Shuard's last Turandot's at the ROH. Cossutta still my favorite Otello,Carroli great on stage but a unusual voice. Patane was always great.

ni la orquesta puede con ella....................................

la voz de sutherland es atmosferica.......lo abarca todo el terreno pero cuando......la eleva aun mas...es un misil atomico................................