The Inaugural Season - Met Performances 1966-67

The Guardian 80

Metropolitan Opera
(Warner Classics, 22 CDs)

In September 1966, the Metropolitan Opera in New York began its first season in its new home, a purpose-built theatre with state-of-the-art stage machinery on Broadway, part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The Met’s general manager, Rudolf Bing, had put together a particularly glittering programme for the company’s first season in its new home, and to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening, this set brings together recordings of 10 of the operas that were part of it.

The recordings come from radio broadcasts during the run of each production, though the performance of the work commissioned to open the new house, Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra, is that of the very first night, on 16 September 1966, with Justino Díaz and Leontyne Price in the title roles, and Thomas Schippers conducting the rather overblown, neo-Romantic score. The sound on all the mono recordings is variable, with the Met chorus and orchestra generally getting the worst of it, and inevitably there’s a lot of extraneous audience and stage noise, with perspectives sometimes shifting rather disconcertingly, but the best of the performances transcend the sonic limitations.