Puccini: Turandot (Met Live CD) – Birgit Nilsson

Composer: Giacomo Puccini
Artists: Birgit Nilsson, Franco Corelli, Mirella Freni, David Milnes, Bonato Giaiotti, Robert Goodloe, Theodor Uppman, Charles Anthony, Robert Nagy, Mariano Caruso, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra & Chorus
Conductor: Zubin Mehta
Label: The Metropolitan Opera
CD Release Date: 2016

With Puccini’s Turandot in the 1960s, the Metropolitan Opera came very close to achieving a rare operatic ideal. A new Met production early in 1961 (the first Turandot there in 31 years) gave it a new lease on life. The well-nigh ideal stars are still unequaled in their roles. 

Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson in the title role brought not only the fierce power and glory that distinguished her singing of Wagner and Strauss’s great heroines, but also her love and affinity for the Italian repertoire. Nilsson was still new to the Met when she first sang Turandot, but she went on to enjoy one of the most successful careers in Met history.

She had the perfect consort in Franco Corelli as Calàf – tall and handsome, with a viscerally exciting tenor voice to match, Corelli’s singing seemed to blaze its way heroically through the music, finishing with thrilling high notes. 

Turandot was a lock for the company’s inaugural season in the new house at Lincoln Center. Nilsson and Corelli reunited for these performances, with Zubin Mehta conducting.

Broadcast and recorded on December 3, 1966.

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