Customer Reviews

La Gioconda

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
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Being a longtime Renata Tebaldi fan, I scan the web regularly in order to find recommendations on recordings featuring her. I am therefore immensely grateful to Mr. F.W. Barton for his enthusiastic review on this recording, which made me get it. I totaly agree with him: Renata Tebaldi is in amazingly superb form in this performance (she was 46 years old then!). What a beautiful, velvety voice she had! The sound is astonishingly good too for a live recording. What a pity that she was not partnered by Carlo Bergonzi on this occasion, which would have made this an all-round perfect performance.

This performance, in Naples, is a most incredible one. FIRST and foremost, the STEREO sound. It's SO clear you can hear a very squeaky floorboard at the Teatro San Carlo! Tebaldi's performance FAR outshines her studio recording, and her partners, especially Colzani shine as well! It's like you were THERE in the theatre. So many of my Tebaldi friends have old copies of this, and figure, why bother to buy it again?Why bother? Because you will feel you are at the FRONT ROW of the theatre. You can hear the singers clear their throats, during applause from a climactic aria! You can even hear the toe-shoes on the floor. This recording has NO equal, and many many MANY thanks to HARDY for giving it to us to enjoy -- FOREVER! This will rank upon your MOST played operas -- EVER! Exactly like a professional recording studio set up in the theatre. No dropouts, nothing off-pitch, this is really an opera lover's dream come true. A SCALDING performance, with equally scalding sound! GRAB it!