Description:

The audience in this very live 1974 performance is audibly navided over the quality of this performance, but they seem to be united by the rapturous singing of Fiorenza Cossotto. The heroine of La Favorita, Leonora, doesn’t have the best of luck, but her suffering always provides an ample showcase for a singing actress as fine as Cossotto, and she does not disappoint in the slightest. When she makes her entrance on “O mio Fernando”, electricity races through the air. Her performance is so exquisite that only the presence of Luciano Pavarotti and Piero Cappuccilli allow the central love triangle to maintain any kind of balance. Pavarotti is in excellent form (though his diction gets uncharacteristically sloppy). I am far more sympathetic to Cappuccilli’s keenly-sung, intelligent Alfonso than certain members of the audience, who make their displeasure with him audibly known. Ivo Vinco, Cossotto’s husband, fills out the cast as an admirably implacable Baldassare. The sound is solid.

OD 11334-2