I Wish There Is a DVD for This Cast!!!
I bought the recording in the tape form years ago. I could not listen to it any more because of the wear after I played it too many times. Fortunately, technology came to the resue, CD!!!

The tenderness, emotion, range, and capacity, from a delicate note to a full blown key, Luciano Pavarotti's voice is from Heaven. No tenor recordings came close to the quality of singing of this one.

Joan Sutherland is the sweetest Liu that I have ever heard. Better still, the voices of the two, Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pvarotti, were the best combination ever. Add to this, we get Montserrat Caballe as the princess.

What more can one ask for?

Unicos!!
Siempre he pensado que en la obra maestra de Giacomo Puccini, que por cierto dentro de algunos días completara 82 años de haberse estrenado, abusa un poco del registro agudo y sobreagudo para dar forma a la pauta; igualmente en la modulación de la intensidad y volúmen orquestal; pero hay que pensar que no estaba terminada para cuando murió prematuramente; la embergadura de semejante obra deja pasmado al escucha más docto y exigente; es en si una obra de tales magnitudes que desde su entrada se prevee la exigencia a cada uno de los integrantes del reparto; basta decir que los solistas principales (prima donna e primo uomo) cantan con "la integral" del registro, al tope de sus posibilidades vocales; es una obra extraordinariamente difícil y exigente para los cantantes; por ende se necesita un equipo como este; nos muestra cosas interesantes y por demás geniales; Joanine canta como nunca antes me la hubiera imaginado, con una canto plano, sin coloratura, con exigencias dramáticas incoercibles; bien era conocido el dominio del reino sobreagudo, pero en esta ocasión fue mas allá de todo lo que imaginé; perfecta!!; el Calaf que apesar de lo que digan sus detractores, Pavarotti también sobrepasa lo esperado, que manera de emitir sus sobreagudos, que manera de mostrarse hasta cierto punto dramático (siendo una voz lírico spinto); un calaf que desde mi punto de vista llena perfectamente su rol; la maravilla de Caballé en su rol de Liú, con magistral dominio del pianissimi y con su perfecto dominio del legatto; corta participación pero perfecta también; el emperador de los Bajos, Nicolai Ghiaurov como Timur, espléndida voz ya también extinta, pero que con un rol pequeño llega hasta la fibras más profundas y sensibles, basta mencionar la escena del suicidio de Liú y de la plañidera voz quebrada por el llanto y la desesperación, saca lágrimas!!; la participación de los roles menores también a su nivel; la orquesta un tanto "stacatta" pero con una volumen correcto y bien temperada; coros ni que decir.... necesaria y obligada también...

Turandot with Sutherland
This version is certainly the best for me.
Joan Sutherland has always been my favourite, I was lucky enough to have seen her performing several times.
She is exceptional.

Amazon promptly replace defective CD
Good performance. CD had a "dimple" on the media side. Two tracks were unreadable. Getting a replacement from Amazon was easy and quick. Amazon e-mailed a postage-paid label. Slapped on on the box and dropped in a mailbox. Amazon promptly shipped a replacement. Painless and prompt.

Pleasant memories of great talent
Puccini - Turandot / Sutherland · Pavarotti · Caballé · Ghiaurov · Krause · Pears · LPO · Mehta

This recording brings together some of the most remarkable talents in the world of opera who reached their peaks during my lifetime. Sutherland, Pavarotti and, of course, Mehta. Given that it's a Puccini piece (one of my favourite composers) you'd expect me to rave a bit. Lots of exclamation marks and other grammatical expressions of temporary insanity.

Oh, it's a pleasant-enough piece of work and undoubtedly an audio snapshot of Pavarotti at his best working with Sutherland (who was better). There simply couldn't be a better choice than Mehta to bake all of this into something irresistible and terribly bad for you. And yet, and yet.

Yes, it is pleasant-enough and perhaps it's Puccini's choice of storyline that begins to reign it in and hold it back from the finish line of fist-pumping, wild-eyed ecstacy (do opera lovers do that?). Sadly, no-one has ever managed to marry European melodic forms with a Chinese theme and produce an offspring that had that 'carry-you-away' quality. (And, no, nothing by Gilbert & Sullivan qualifies as an exception to that.)

Perhaps its the recording standards of 1990 that keep this from being audio heroin. I don't know - all I know is that I find it pleasant-enough and a decent accompaniment to other tasks that leave have my mind free to listen.

Operatic muzak? Not quite but not a great deal more either.