We have missed your posts so much.
Today our constant vigilance has finally paid off !

Please don’t get deprive us of your presence in the queendom of La Cieca again, or allow the lesser lights to drive you to distraction.

You have the duty to set us all “straight”.

Yes, yes, yes and yes. Mitropoulos adored the score, delved deep and got his hands dirty in it. Shocking and completely right.

I heard her do Fidelio in Berlin (she recorded it, released in USA by Nonesuch, with the frankly elderly but still impressive Julius Patzak), I saw her do Elektra and Elsa there as well.

She was one of a generation of very, very good American singers who would be more than welcome and maybe world stars today (Phyllis Curtain fabulous for instance as Salome and the Capriccio Countess in Vienna for instance), Arlene Saunders, Elizabeth Carron and especially Elinor Ross before her neurological illness caused some bad performances at the Met and forced her retirement — she had an IMMENSE voice, thrilling high notes, stamina and temperament and the Norma DVD is wonderful — she is still the best overall Gioconda I’ve seen — I saw Zinka three times but late where she was uneven though the specialness of the timbre was still there but Elinor in her prime had really almost as much in timbre and as much if not more in technical security, of course Big Renata was thrilling her first season or two in the role but she did not have the secure top or the mostly reliable intonation or the pianissimi of Elinor, and Marton who should have sung all the big Wagner roles and Elektra at the Met in the 80′s was also thrilling but Elinor who is American, I think of mixed ethnic heritage, was far more Italian– she was also a terrific Aida, a fabulous Turandot in the time of Nilsson no less, and outstanding in Ballo and Tosca).

Carron was an infinitely better Angelica than Racette or Stratas and a really lovely Lauretta — she would have had more sense than to try Giorgetta. She had less voice than the great Soviero (a revelation in all three roles) and was not as ‘special’ as Little Renata (better in her first two attempts at all three roles in I believe 1976 than later, though great interpretively later and sometimes able to pull it together vocally too), also a fabulous Mimi (she reduced De Stefano and the entire audience to sobs in the last act of a Philly Boheme, and people also cried through her third act) and a very good Violetta and Butterfly.

Borkh had more humanity, nuance and heartbreak than the miraculous Nilsson or the scary Varnay (saw her in 1960 in an unforgettable concert with Dimitri Mitropoulos — possibly the most astounding and musical Elektra I’ve ever heard, Levine is a joke in comparison — Dimitri and Borkh can be heard in wonderful sound with the greatest Lisa Della Casa, Madeira and yes, Jackie Horne from Salzburg on the Orfeo d’or pressing and that is fabulous). I have loved Polaski (better in Berlin though) and Schnaut (but the pitch difficulties are always more than incidental in her performances but no worse than at least one other Elektra cited above in bizarre, mentally ill terms, and in other respects infinitely better). I thought Bullock was just OK though she has good routine and a strong take on the role.

Good to see Maury’s review and some funny comments, with only a couple of fools (not taking everybody in).
Oh, btw, I was at Christa’s Fidelio, having hitching hiked down from Yale for Birgit to get a huge surprise (thrilling performance, Christa’s last of the role do or die perhaps rather than perfect with Jon in amazing voice).

At the MET in the early ’60s she stepped in as Brünnhilde a couple of times, but for the broadcast cycle she ws Sieglinde and Gutrune. At Bayreuth in 1968 & 69 she got to do a few Isolde’s when Nilsson was out of voice, and also sang the Göttterdämmerung Brünnhilde.

I’m not surprised that she did Elektra. A useful person to have around the green room.

That scream, though! One of the dogs always starts howling at that point.

Varnay, on the Friedrich film of Elektra.

But she was very fine, like a couple other posters, I like a true low voice in this role (and Madeira was a real contralto). I’ve seen an awful lot of sopranos that have sung Kltemnestra (and other mezzo parts) to prolong their careers: Resnik, Rysanek, Dernesch, Varnay etc and they were all a lot of fun and very colorful, but give me a real contralto in the role. I think the campy romping works better as herodias anyway.

Ha, ha. I saw the Ludwig Fidelio, I was one of the 40, 000 that was actually there. I had a ticket for a Sills recital for that evening and stopped at the Met before going over to ALice tully Hall. when I saw the opera change from elektra to Fidelio), I bought a ticket (very easy, there were a lot), and sold my Sills ticket. The elektra cover was Inge
Borkh, a thrilling Elektra on record, but during that season she was a mess vocally and I’m guessing that while Bing was willing to let Borkh go onstage as the Dyer’s Wife, elektra was too much for her to carry and so he convinced Ludwig to try a Met Leonore (which was wonderful). I told Ludwig backstage after the performance how thrilling it was to hear her as Leonore but she yelled, “Ja, but the B!!!! Ach!”

The other Met performance from that era that thousands claim to have attended was the sole Nilsson/Vickers Met tristan a few years later. I wasn’t at that one!