Don Carlo (LIVE) -- Franco Corelli & Raina Kabaivanska -- Act I Duet (English subtitles)

(Verdi: Don Carlo) Metropolitan Opera, February 14, 1970.

"Io vengo a domandar grazia"

From "Start-up at the New Met, the Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts, 1966-1976" by Paul Jackson:
"Now let us all praise Franco Corelli! The opera is hardly a tenor vehicle, but on this afternoon Corelli fills the role with such abundant, glorious tone that he deserves our salutations. Nor is his musical honesty and dramatic commitment of inferior quality. Of course, he will spend tone where the composer asks for containment -- that blemish we must simply accept (and willingly, in the face of his other assets)....From the first, he is in splendid, free voice....he vaults to high notes with uncommon assurance. The tenor appears to be fully aware of his exalted vocal state on this afternoon, for he sings with confident abandon in the most difficult passages. At the end of the court duet with Elisabetta he tops the concluding phrase with a brilliant, and tonally luxuriant, high B-flat (the note increasing in amplitude and vibrancy -- an effect remarkable even for him)."

Filippo II................................ Georgio Tozzi
Don Carlo............................. Franco Corelli
Rodrigo................................. Robert Merrill
Elisabetta di Valois............. Raina Kabaivanska
La principessa d'Eboli........ Grace Bumbry
Il grande inquisitore............ Raymond Michalski
Un frate.................................. Edmond Karlsrud
Tebaldo................................. Judith Forst
La contessa d'Aremberg.... Patricia Heyes
Il conte di Lerma.................. Leo Goeke
Un araldo reale.................... Rod MacWherter
Una voce dal cielo.............. Margaret Kalil
maestro direttore................. Kurt Adler

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