Richard Tucker, Bidú Sayão, Mimi Benzell, & Frank Valentino - "La boheme" Act III quartet

[ardeladimwit]

thanks- I'd forgotten this  existed.

[JABDUDE]

MIMI BENZELL ROCKS

[ShawDAMAN]

Beautiful, thanks. Incidentally how did you get this to come up widescreen? Nice.. :)

[ShawDAMAN]

Nevermind I just realized it was something youtube did, not you. :)

Again, great post

[Mooorhe]

*Points and laughs* :P

[ShawDAMAN]

LOL ok, I feel stupid now- this was the first video I watched after youtube made the change and I was like "hey, nice! how do you do that!" LOL

[Mooorhe]

:P

My reaction was more along the lines: 'What the hell... they've changed it again, it's hideous' :P.

[VinylToVideo]

Thumbs up for that comment.

[pearlmuth3]

This was Tucker's first complete operatic recording. The year 1944 started his singing of complete opera in Chicago with the Chicago Theatre Of The Air every sat eve. they put on abridged versions of great opera and operetta in Chicago live in the Medinah Temple which was huge, nearly 5,000 people it was brdcst coast to Coast on Radio of course. He sang many of those productions from naughty marietta to Otello and Boris, the next year was his met debut in Gioconda 1/25/ 45

[pearlmuth3]

Thanks I like this recording more then the one he did in 61 of the opera, that one had a great cast also but this one shows a 34 year old tucker and he was more lyric for the part. He received great reviews for this recording and so did Sayo. Yes for 1947 the sound is very good.

[VinylToVideo]

I agree, this one is much better than the later RCA recording. Tucker, Merrill, and Moffo certainly were not at their best on that one.

[linguini9966]

sure, but come on - that recording is WAY better than a boheme you're likely to hear live now almost anywhere in the world! I've heard Merrill sing better, but it was still pretty awesome!

[VinylToVideo]

That goes without saying; of course all of the RCA and Columbia operatic recordings from those days are better than any of the CRAP recorded today.