A revival of Un Ballo in Maschera, the third and final leg of the Met’s Verdi Autumn, arrives on Friday, prompting Chris’s Cache to offer five fatal Swedish/Bostonian love triangles: Régine Crespin, Richard Tucker & Sherrill Milnes; Montserrat Caballé, Placido Domingo & Robert Merrill; Mara Zampieri, Giacomo Aragall & Giorgio Zancanaro; Teresa Zylis-Gara, Peter Dvorsky & Piero Cappuccilli; and Julia Varady, Kristian Johansson & Wolfgang Brendel.

The Met Archives are still MIA, but I don’t believe that either Crespin or Caballé sang Amelia very often with the company, and today’s Renato comes from Milnes’s first Met season. As I missed Luciano Pavarotti’s many local appearances in one of his best roles, my first live Ballo was the night of Deborah Voigt’s Met debut when Dvorsky was her Riccardo. YouTube includes live recordings of many of Varady’s Verdi roles, but Ballo isn’t one of them, so this 1994 Munich pirate fills that gap.

If the rumor is true that the Met soon intends to produce a new Ballo, this season’s run of the fine David Alden production starring Angela Meade, Charles Castronovo and Quinn Kelsey may be its last.

Verdi: Un ballo in maschera

Amelia: Régine Crespin
Ulrica: Ruza Baldani
Oscar: Jeanette Scovotti
Riccardo: Richard Tucker
Renato: Sherrill Milnes
Samuel: Lorenzo Alvary
Tom: Louis Sgarro

Conductor: Francesco Molinari-Pradelli

Metropolitan Opera
6 April 1966
In-house recording

Amelia: Montserrat Caballé
Ulrica: Irene Dalis
Oscar: Joy Clements
Riccardo: Plácido Domingo
Renato: Robert Merrill
Samuel: Paul Plishka
Tom: Andrij Dobriansky

Conductor: Francesco Molinari-Pradelli

Metropolitan Opera
13 October 1970
In-house recording

Amelia: Mara Zampieri
Ulrica: Ambra Vespasiani
Oscar: Susanna Rigacci
Riccardo: Giacomo Aragall
Renato: Giorgio Zancanaro
Samuel: Luigi Roni
Tom: Giancarlo Luccardi

Conductor: Gianluigi Gelmetti

Rome
18 December 1985
Broadcast

Amelia: Teresa Zylis-Gara
Ulrica: Cornelia Wulkopf
Oscar: Julie Kaufmann
Riccardo: Peter Dvorsky
Renato: Piero Cappuccilli
Samuel: Kieth Engen
Tom: Gerhard Auer

Conductor: Daniel Lipton

Bayerische Staatsoper München
24 January 1987

Amelia: Julia Varady
Ulrica: Nina Terentieva
Oscar: Julie Kaufmann
Riccardo: Kristian Johansson
Renato: Wolfgang Brendel
Samuel: Harry Dworchak
Tom: Gerhard Auer

Conductor: Peter Schneider

Bayerische Staatsoper München
31 January 1994
In-house recording

Each Ballo can be downloaded by clicking on the icon of a box with an arrow pointing downward on the audio player above and the resulting mp3 file will appear in your download directory.

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