Donizetti: La Fille Du Régiment Covent Garden 1966 Sutherland Pavarotti Malas Bonynge BETTER SOUND

Joan's first ever Marie in La Fille du Régiment! Paired along with Pavarotti. Date is June 2nd 1966. I've cleaned up the sound a bit and repitched the recording as the speed if the tape seemed to vary in the original recording. Sadly, I cannot do much about the wow and flutter or distortion this recording suffers from (some places are a bit more wobbly than others). This production was the only time LIVE that Joan didn't transpose the Au Bruit de la guerre aria, and sang Salut a la France the way she did in the studio recording, unlike later Met performances.
Enjoy! :)
Cast:
Marie - Joan Sutherland
Tonio - Luciano Pavarotti
Sulplice - Spiro Malas
La Maquise - Monica Sinclair
Hortensius - Jules Bruyère
Caporale - Eric Garrett
La Duchesse - Edith Coates
Conductor - Richard Bonynge
Chorus and Orchestra of the ROH

[@pianoronald]

I saw the reprise in 1967, it was my first visit to Covent Garden. I loved every minute of the show!

[@jondavwal13]

This is just amazing from beginning to end.

[@eric644]

Joan sings like a nightingale here. Truly angelic and beautiful.

[@ahogbin2644]

Superhuman vocalism from Joan Sutherland. I’d heard snippets from this but not the entire performance. Thanks so much. Interesting to hear some variants she never repeated again.

[@barrymalkin4404]

To me, this is one of the best performances of any opera anywhere. And all the photographs of Dame Joan, the boyishly handsome Pavarotti and this charmingly old-fashioned production brings that bygone era alive again. Monica Sinclair was definitely feeling her inner Hyacinth Bucket in the lesson scene which was quite apropos: In an episode of Keeping Up Appearances Hyacinth was singing while playing the piano and told another performer, "Don't worry. Not everyone can sing like me and Joan Sutherland!" 🤐 Thank you as always for this great singing and nostalgia.

[@davidhansel897]

Thank you for posting this! Overture: 0:00 Act 1: 06:13 Marie's Entrance: 14:56 "Chacun le sait": 28:02 "Ah! mes amis": 51:08 Act 2: 1:07:26 Lesson Scene: 1:11:19 "Par le rang": 1:21:46 "Pour me rapprocher": 1:36:09 Finale: 1:46:35

[@UMVELINQANGI]

Glorious!

[@lucianopavarotti2843]

I always look up the reviews from the time. Usually they are surprisingly sniffy. See here OPERA Magazine Review of the June 8 , 1966 performance (six days after this recording): "The evening began with an over -loud , over-fast and not particularly distinguished performance of the overture, but thereafter Richard Bonynge conducted with more taste and style than the spectacle he was accompanying. Indeed , the few worth-while musical numbers, like the charming trio in the second act for soprano , tenor and bass (very reminiscent of Comte Ory ), went extremely well and the chorus, when not playing the fool , sang its music with sure attack and great verve . But oh, those French accents! If they grated so horribly in a comedy, what will they sound like in a piece like Benvenuto Cellini? - which, one gathers is to be sung in French next season (a foolish decision , I would have thought) . Joan Sutherland was not in her best voice , and although the vocal fireworks were thrown off with great aplomb it was in the more elegiac portions of the score that her best singing came. Monica Sinclair overdid the comedy and made the Marquise of Berkenfield into a caricature - in fact nearly everyone treated the evening like an undergraduate romp. Not so Luciano Pavarotti who was charming in an unsophisticated way, and who sang with style; nor Spiro Malas, whose Sergeant Sulpice was rather negative."

[@lucianopavarotti2843]

Eh-hem @55:26