A favorite Verdi performance from Marina Rebeka

While studying Un ballo in maschera for my Vienna role debut next January, I came across this beautiful ‘Ecco l’orrido campo’ amazingly performed by Montserrat Caballé.

I always admired the purity of her voice — it sounds like water. Perfect technique joins here with emotional pathos. We hear it especially when she says “mezzanotte”– after which singing becomes not just singing, but a kind of mixture between singing and scream of terror at seeing the horror of the cemetery. And in the last prayer, “miserere, m’aita o Signor” we hear desperation and are moved by an amazing piani which became a signature of one of greatest sopranos in the history.

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