The cast of this in-house pirate features Gabriella Tucci, Fiorenza Cossotto, Bruno Prevedi, Robet Merrill, Nicolai Ghiaurov, and Martti Talvela. As this Verdi run occurred during the fall, there was no Saturday matinee broadcast.

I don’t know if Abbado ever commented on why he never returned to the Met, but I might guess that the ever-changing casts—a frequent happening during the Bing era–he encountered during his stint might have been a factor.

Below are the casts for that fall’s seven performances of Don Carlo:

Tucci, Dalis, Prevedi, Merrill, Ghiaurov, Talvela
Tucci, Cossotto, Prevedi, Merrill, Ghiaurov, Talvela
Tucci, Dalis, Prevedi, Merrill, Ghiaurov, Talvela
Tucci, Verrett, Prevedi, Merrill, Ghiaurov, Talvela

Orlandi-Malaspina, Verrett, Tucker, Merrill, Ghiaurov, Talvela
Kabaivanska, Verrett, Tucker, Merrill, Tozzi, Talvela
And then a final performance on 19 November conducted by George Schick instead of Abbado:
Kabaivanska, Verrett, Tucker, Sereni, Giaiotti, Talvela

A short while after these Met performances, Abbado conducted his first La Scala Don Carlo for the Opening Night of the 1968-69 season with several of his Met singers: Orlandi-Malaspina, Cossotto, Prevedi, Cappuccilli, Ghiaurov, Talvela in a production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. So, were the Met shows his first-ever encounter with Don Carlo?

After two more performances as Carlo, Prevedi would also be gone from the Met for good. Talvela made his Met debut as the Grand Inquisitor in the previous performance. In the midst of the Verdi run he’d also appear as Hunding in the premiere of Herbert von Karajan’s Die Walküre. Ghiaurov sang Filippo twice during his first Met season of 1965-66, whereas Merrill was in the cast of the production’s premiere in 1950, the opening of Bing’s tenure.

The Abbado performances were Tucci’s first Met Elisabettas, though she’d perform the role again in the summer of 1972. This Eboli was Cossotto’s only performance that season.  

Verdi: Don Carlo

Elisabetta: Gabriella Tucci
Princess Eboli: Fiorenza Cossotto
Tebaldo: Judith Forst
Celestial Voice: Margaret Kalil
Don Carlo: Bruno Prevedi
Rodrigo: Robert Merrill
Philip II: Nicolai Ghiaurov
Grand Inquisitor: Martti Talvela
Friar: Paul Plishka

Conductor: Claudio Abbado
Metropolitan Opera
12 October 1968
In-house recording

Abbado’s Don Carlo can be downloaded by clicking on the icon of a cloud 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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