New online: The Carlos Kleiber Elektra
OperaAn audience recording at Covent Garden, taken on May 14, 1977.
Nilsson, Jones, Szirmay, Craig, McIntyre.
Beyond the beyond.
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Does a BBC recording exist? Presumably in best possible sound?
No – it was never recorded or we would not need a punter’s efforts!
Amazing. How come it took nearly fifty years for this recording to emerge?
Especially as the sound is a lot better than anything else which has emerged before (from this run of performances)?
Glorious!
I went to one of these 1977 performances and it remains a particular highlight in all my opera going life. I remember Nilsson getting 32 curtain calls and have a feeling it was the last night of the run. Perhaps someone can correct me, but it might well have been her farewell to ROH Covent Garden.
Sound very poor
Very good for an in-house nearly fifty years old.
An ‘audience recording’? We used to call them bootlegs.
Better than nothing, old chum!
The provenance of this sounds like something out of the movie “Diva”.
The recording has been known for a long time and has been circulating on the black market for years. Nothing new then, dear Norman.
No – a version of one of this run of performances has been circulating for years, but in terrible sound. This is new!
The weekend has turned exciting. I saw one performance of this run, can’t find if it was the same night. Thank you!
There’s also a good recording of the first night (6 May) circulating, which is complete. This one, is missing some music around the half-way point while the cassette was flipped over.
No – that one (also now in better sound, from the same YouTube source) also has a break, for the same reason. The need to change the tape!
It was very considerate of Carlos to adopt such fast tempi. Most performances of Elektra would not fit onto a C-90 cassette.
At the very end of this recording, you can hear someone turn to his friend and say “That was an hour and a half!”)
Nice discovery!
Birgit Nilsson (not Nisson)
Can I also hope for the Kleiber Otello at Covent Garden with Domingo Ricciarelli and Diaz please …
Now, that has been around for years!
But which, if any, of CK’s appearances at Covent Garden have been preserved by the BBC in the best possible sound?
Capital Radio broadcast the earliest (and best) of his Covent Garden Otellos, from 1980. Margaret Price, Domingo and Silvano Carroli.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvmQA5j-iEA
And for comparison, here is another from the same much better source, of the opening night (6th May)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIXnsDBDd0I
Sadly this version is extremely sharp in a=453.
I’ve uploaded it on my channel in correct pitch, using the same source material (which is indeed better than what was available previously)
https://youtu.be/B-293tBUBog?si=i0IDcvBmC9dBhq2n
Ah, I see there are TWO Elektra performances from the same run on that channel. I referred to the 6 May performance, but Norman had linked to the 14 May performance.
Beyond the beyond??? It sounds to my ears very mediocre, dry and boxy, …there are better ones out there