The Inaugural Season: Extraordinary Met Performances from 1966–67 (22-CD BOX SET)
Price: $135.00 Members: $121.50
Item: 811357018224
Description
The Inaugural Season: Extraordinary Met Performances from 1966–67 (22-CD BOX SET)
Composers: Samuel Barber, Giacomo Puccini, Richard Strauss, Gaetano Donizetti, Benjamin Britten, Giuseppe Verdi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Artists: Various; The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra & Chorus
Conductors: Various
Number of Discs: 22
Label: Metropolitan Opera
CD Release Date: September 15, 2016
A milestone 22-CD set, featuring ten complete operas from the Met’s first season at Lincoln Center.
On September 16, 1966, the new Metropolitan Opera House opened in Lincoln Center with the world premiere of Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra, with Leontyne Price and Justino Díaz in the title roles. That first season in the Met’s new home not only ushered in a new age of theatrical possibility, it also featured an embarrassment of vocal riches, with such incomparable artists as Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli facing off in an unforgettable Turandot; Joan Sutherland delivering a Lucia di Lammermoor mad scene for the ages; and Jon Vickers making a historic role debut in Peter Grimes.
Fifty years later, ten performances from that inaugural season – plus a bonus CD of additional highlights – have been collected and remastered in this essential milestone set, also featuring such legends as Grace Bumbry, Mirella Freni, Christa Ludwig, Anna Moffo, Roberta Peters, Leonie Rysanek, Renata Tebaldi, Carlo Bergonzi, Robert Merrill, and Richard Tucker, among others.
Titles:
- Barber: Antony and Cleopatra (Schippers; Price, Díaz, Thomas)
- Puccini: Turandot (Mehta; Nilsson, Corelli, Freni, Giaiotti)
- R. Strauss: Die Frau ohne Schatten (Böhm; Rysanek, Ludwig, Dalis, King, Berry)
- Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor (Bonynge; Sutherland, Tucker, Colzani, Ghiuselev)
- Britten: Peter Grimes (Davis; Vickers, Amara, Evans)
- Verdi: Aida (Schippers; Price, Bergonzi, Bumbry, Merrill)
- Mozart: Die Zauberflöte (Krips; Raskin, Peters, Shirley, Uppman, Macurdy)
- Verdi: Otello (Mehta; McCracken, Caballé, Gobbi)
- Puccini: Madama Butterfly (Molinari-Pradelli; Scotto, Casei, Shirley, Bottcher)
- Verdi: Rigoletto (Gardelli; MacNeil, Peters, Gedda, Giaiotti)
- BONUS DISC: Highlights of the Met’s 1966–67 Season; including performances by Arroyo, Milnes, Moffom, Stratas, and Tebaldi
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These are all turbo-charged with singing of great lyricism and passion, but be advised, they are all in mono-not stereo as one would have expected for performances in 1966/67.
Phil Oxera, November 2020