Lisa Della Casa: "Ah, Chi Mi Dice Mai", Don Giovanni, Salzburger Festspiele 1954, Wiener Philharmoniker, Wilhelm Furtwängler cond.

Comments

[Oroveso]

Thankfully, still with us at 92 & still smoking Marlboros! The greatest & most beautiful Countess Almaviva & Donna Elvira I ever saw. 100% Künstlerin all the way!

[Furst]

We thank OC for bringing us this wonderful treat.

We did not have the opportunity to see Madame della Casa live and even in our great antiquity the beginning of our tenure just barely coincided with the very end of her career.

However, at the very beginning of our interest in things classical and operatic we encountered the Kleiber Figaro with Madame taking her most celebrated role as the Countess. Since that magical afternoon we have been the greatest enthusiasts of Figaro and Madam della Casa whom we have all alway regarded her as the ideal in this repertoire (Elvira, Countess, Fiordiligi, Marschallin, Arabella, Eva?, Elsa?, VLL, etc..).

We do not mean to denigrate her remarkable vocal talent but we must confess that her extraordinary physical beauty (of a sort that coincides especially closely with our taste in such things) has always seemed to us her defining characteristic. Fortunately, however high the standard she may have set, we have had the good fortune to encounter a worth successor (or two) to all aspects of her legacy.

We wish her many more years of happy smoking.

[El Cajon]

Exquisite! Thanks for posting, O.C.