Hi Ralph, reading your review of the Pavarotti reissues I can confirm that his voice was a bit lite for some of those roles. The San Francisco Opera house is about 3300 seats so while not the largest it is something of a size. I believe Il trovatore was the opener for the 75 season and it was Sutherland’s debut in the role of Leonora so expectations were high. I remember thinking that his voice was undersized from where I sat but the man knew how to stir an audience. At the end of Di quella pira he held his sword upside down as if it were a cross and from the back of the stage marched to front while ringing out that high C. As the saying goes, the crowd went wild. My wife an I started attending the Opera regularly in 71 and were fortunate to hear most of the greats of the time; Nilsson, Vickers, Sills, Domingo et.al. We were still in our twenties and we assumed it would always be like that. Sigh.
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