On this day in 1971 the Met revived Norma with its surefire team of Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne.

Review of Winthrop Sargeant in the New Yorker:

On Thursday night, that guaranteed product, the Joan Sutherland-Marilyn Horne “Norma,” made its appearance. The singing in this production is so universally brilliant that I shall not attempt to find adjectives to describe it. Miss Sutherland was a bit cautious about her “Casta diva,” and her Italian diction was as poor as ever, but she managed that most difficult of coloratura feats, the descending chromatic scale, admirably. Miss Horne has everything that a singer can have. There was a tenor new to me in the role of Pollione – Franco Tagliavini, a young man with a superb voice, a little unpolished, but one that, along with his height, slimness, and good looks, will, I suspect, make him the next generation’s Corelli. Ezio Flagello’s Oroveso was also new to me. I have yet to see this artist turn in anything less than an excellent portrayal, and his heavier, deeper voice made him more satisfactory than Cesare Siepi had been in the last previous performance of the work I had witnessed. Richard Bonynge, the conductor, seemed for the moment to have recovered from his usual flabbiness of control, and produced at least a fairly spirited first act.