Unlike some others, I think it's instructive to hear great singers struggling at less than their best. From this performance it is clear that Moffo had a very good idea of what the voice could and couldn't do that afternoon. She realized that the top and most of the acuti were still working and probably thought that since it was Lucia and not Cavalleria, she would still be able to deliver what most people expect. The cadenza and the E-flat at the end proves this. It is also important to remember that sometimes covers for performances weren't always available for various reasons, ie. sickness, etc., and she may have had no choice. I think this performance shows bravery and pluck.
I agree. Someone just posted excerpts of the first and second acts and she sounds fine there with only a hint of unsteadiness. If she had bailed out after Act Two, this performance wouldn’t have gotten the infamous reputation it did. At the end of the day, we are all human.
I don't give a shit about this recording. Shit happens. Moffo had an incredible voice and incredible vocal technique, agility and ease in doing anything. She indeed was one of the greatest. I prefer her over Callas and other great sopranos in many roles.
She had a beautiful voice and should never have been performing that night. I want a singer who is ready to perform and if not she should have refused and allowed an understudy to sing that evening. We pay 200 to 500 a nite and deserve the best. Of course, some notes can be missed when it is a live performance but not the whole piece.
@@rothvinbosley1335 I agree! For both the sake of the singer as well as the paying audience. Just like with the famous (or infamous) "Rome walkout" of Callas! She KNEW she should not have performed, but tried anyway, only to then have to give up due to her illness, and cancel the rest of the performance. Performers should not be made to perform when ill. Period!
@@rothvinbosley1335 Was she for sure drunk, though? There seems to be a lot of debate on what the situation really was. Regardless, though...she should not have sung that night. And its too bad the recording still exists. She was a magnificent artist, and I'm glad that there are so many more really great recordings of her.
I found this on a blog from a fan who was there that night. "...The following weekend I was at the Met and ran into her (Moffo) in the lobby. She knew me as a frequent backstage visitor and she said hello. It was very awkward; I asked her how she was and she said 'I'm sick...didn't you hear the broadcast?' She obviously felt as uncomfortable as I did." Imagine trying to get through the Mad Scene knowing you're sick, your voice is failing you, AND you are being broadcast live...
AND she had taken cold medicine earlier to help her get through it. She had sung Lucia several times at the MET yet this was her first (and only) broadcast of Lucia di Lammermoor, and she did not want to disappoint!!!
this is only a twinkle in her career. Listen to her Rachmaninoff vocalizes..bar none world class singing. Singing comes from the soul, if her soul was restless her voice will translate into that. Her technique was impeccable overall and thats what her legacy beholds for us! Thank you great Anna
The best thing about this video is that it is only seen by 13,000 viewers. Happily Miss Moffo's other videos solo or with other artists are generally viewed 50,000 plus viewers. I recently read that Miss Moffo knew that she was not in good voice for this Lucia performance, but she decided to on against the advice of others,Thankfully Miss Moffo's legacy will always outlive this one bad Lucia performance.
We all need to cut each other and her some slack, agreed her seemingly effortless Coloratura Work was just spot on 99% of the time. She unfortunately got entangled in the Jet Set of Europe and rather burned herself out....but what a Glorious Voice and easy on the Eye...!! Some stars that burn brightly in the beginning become super-novas way to soon. She left a large catalog of Music having been married to "Mr. RCA", and she sang with the best of them....You are missed so much - Gone to Soon..!
If you heard Anna Moffo before whatever happened to her voice, she was a truly magnificent coloratura soprano; arguably one of the finest of the last century. Hard to believe what happened!
REALLY, REALLY?? You are using this lousy parlando half assed performance to criticize Joan Sutherland?? You really are an a**! Moffo should never have sung that performance if she was voiceless, that’s all. If you wish to criticize both Callas and Sutherland to “praise” Moffo, then be honest about the merits of all three. While Moffo had a very attractive and feminine sound-not here-she never reached the artistry, interpretation and technique of Callas and Sutherland respectively. That said, there are times where she sounds lost on the moors and is calling the hogs home. Born in what, 1932, she should have been in her prime but evidently wasn’t. Hell, even the flutist sounds in better voice than she does! However, I enjoy many of her recordings and in several she is wonderful.
I've listened to this a few times and I've came to realisation that I actually quite like it. She really does sound *mad* . Like some people here I also think that her acting just took over her singing, perhaps as a conscious choice as she was definitely sick and struggling. But the high notes are still wonderful. It's really not that bad. And I think the audience quite liked it. It surely wasn't her best day though.
Not sure what happened here but Anna Moffo truly had one of the most beautiful operatic voices, if this is your first time hearing her please go and listen to some of her other recordings, this one does not do her justice. My first time hearing her voice was a recording of 'Vocalise' it made me cry and it still does today.
Well, I think this is absolutely horrible and, as for today, I've heard *infinitely* better Mad Scenes even at my state opera company, from "unknown" sopranos.
Yes, it is terrible. Even the mediocre singers today aren‘t that terrible. But she had a bad night. She was so wonderful in her early years. But listen to Oropesa sing this - only because they are new it doesn‘t mean they are always bad. And obly because they are from the past it doesn‘t mean that they are automatically great
You try singing the role of Lucia when your throat, sinuses and lungs are sick ! Her voice was just not responding on that day , but she didn't feel that she could cancel . Really I am sure that she would have been happier back home in bed with a warm drink. Anna Moffo remains a great singer in 20th century history who left a legacy of beautiful performances and recordings. Her vocal crisis was sad , but she was not the only high profile singer to live such a thing. Let's keep the memory of the beautiful things she did alive .
From what is to be read about Ms. Moffo, she suffered a vocal breakdown in 1968 (from over work) and never fully recovered. If so, then this would be at a time when she would have been struggling to regain her form (rather than being tipsy). It would be sad to take joy from her bad fortune at this time. (And certainly it isn't the disaster that the title of this clip indicates it is.) There is is much to be admired about her career and other youtube clips of her in top form.
This was actually the crisis. She'd been in worsening trouble leading up to this, but had managed not to make any bad mistakes. This was the performance where her voice fell apart, and she never fully recovered.
Well it is terribly sad when you know what she sounded like previously. Certainly nothing to celebrate I will listen to her in her prime and be grateful
@@danarzechula3769 her story really is so sad. The fact that such a beautiful voice was lost due to the negative influence of people in her life forcing her to become so overworked. A lot of similarities with Callas I think. I really feel for these women. I truly think that Anna Moffo had one of the most beautiful lyric coloratura voices I've ever heard, when she was in her prime of course.
Sad. I wish I would've read this first. I just saw Anna Moffo and Mad Scene and got super excited. I forget the year, but I have a recording of her doing this and it is still (after 40 years of listening to it) the best performance I've ever heard of this piece. The poster should feel some shame at belittling what was one of the greatest voices of the 20th century.
The studio recording she made with Carlo Bergonzi, under the baton of Georges Prêtre, is the gold standard of Lucia against which I judge all others. Including, yes, the Callas recordings. Let the hatemail ensue.
@stevenlevasee6742: No hate mail but you should have an audiologist check your hearing. Or better, LISTEN TO THE RECORDINGS BY JOAN SUTHERLAND. You can’t help yourself; you don’t have a look.
Moffo e' stata uno dei grandi soprani "autonomi" del 900 e imparagonabile con nessun'altra collega. Lucia credo che psicologicamente non fosse un suo ruolo come anche Gilda, aveva un timbro di colore troppo "sano". Pure li ha cantati benissimo e meglio di altre. Callas in Lucia non si discute.
(Part 2 of my comment): And yet, she kept going. Yes, she was able to sing well, after this - and yes, she also sang much worse, later on. (Much like Garland.) It's all part of her story, though - a reminder to all of us, how fragile a talent can be. I am so thankful that she recorded the massive body of work she did, when she did - and in magnificent voice, too. Her recordings are amazing - and no one can take that away from her. No one. Anna Moffo was the best.
There is no way she was drunk or tipsy when she sang this. She doesnt make a single musical mistake and even if the voice sounds awful, she was together with the orchestra and didnt forget any of the text or music. No way an intoxicated person would get through a demanding Lucia mad scene.
Opera singing relies heavily on muscle memory. This was one of her signature roles so she could sing it in her sleep. She is obviously impaired as this is not how she should sound.
Absolutely! Moffo gave us a wealth of recordings (& performances) - amazingly beautiful vocals. This particular "Lucia" is unfortunate (as is the "Thais" you mentioned) - and is definitely not how I will remember Moffo - but, when put in perspective, it only reinforces how brilliant she was, when in good voice. And, for me? No one compares to Moffo's exquisite vocal beauty. She was the best.
Sad to hear but she was so brave to proceed. A real pro! The most beautiful voice of her generation! Remarkable one of a kind artist and above all musician!
First time I ever heard this, acting this out more than singing it. I guess she tried to save the performance as best she can. I would have called in my stand-by. Later on she did have lots of vocal problems. Her voice quit on her to early, a better tech. might have been the answer. I always loved her and this off day just makes her more human...Brava Anna for all the talent you gave us through the years!
Wow... bitchy...yet funny and sadly true. Don't Didn't and Wont ever like Edita's voice. This mad scene, however, is a sad scene. For about ten years she was truly exceptional...o so not here.....
@@KathrynARyder No. You can tell on some of her sustained notes, that this was unfortunately Moffo! I wonder what the hell happened? I never heard her sing like this!
She was not "tipsy." Moffo's fans had been worrying about signs of impending trouble for quite some time by this day. She had sounded unwell in the first two acts of this, and by the Mad Scene she had very little left. It was a crisis from which she recovered enough to fulfill her commitments, and even to record, but she never again had the lush, beautiful voice of her early career. This recording is unbearably sad.
51 years ago! I still remember this broadcast. I listened to it while holding the current issue of Opera News. She certainly threw herself into the role!!! Was she drunk or fighting the effects of cold medicine (as I later heard?). She struggled, but she got through it and the cadenza was not bad. She even hit the high Eb. She had not lost her voice, or her nerve! Her Gilda broadcast two months previous was lovely and without fault. About 8 years later, Beverly Sills sang a broadcast Lucia that was excruciating! It broke my heart because she was a great artist but this role did her in that day. Renata Scotto sang a Lucia broadcast in about 1972 that was not bad until she came to the two high Ebs ... which she just wailed instead of sung them!!!
I heard that performace in the radio...l was moved so much...so much pain in her voice...It moved my imaginatio eyes,giving me the impression l was watching my beloved Anna on stage...thank you for this post..
is there a complete registration? so, I think that's one of these performances: 1 Oct. 1969, XV Festival d'Opéras Italiens -l Théâtre Municipal de Beaulieu di Lausanne dirige Paolo Peloso, maestro del coro Fulvio Angius, Regia di Sandro Bolchi Anna Moffo (Lucia) e Anna Lia Bazzani (Alisa), tenori lirico Flaviano Labò (Edgardo), lirico-eroico Oslavio Di Credico (Arturo Buklaw) e lirico Ernesto Civolani (Normanno), baritono lirico Walter Alberti (Enrico Ashton), basso serio Franco Ventriglia (Raimondo)} OR 5 - 19 gennaio 1969 Teatro Comunale di Bologna Paolo Peloso, direttore d’orchestra; Sandro Bolchi, regia. Lord Enrico Ashton: Walter Alberti/Attilio D’Orazi/Franco Bordoni Lucia: Renata Scotto/Maria Luisa Cioni Sir Edgardo: Flaviano Labò/Giacomo Aragall/Manlio Rocchi Lord Arturo Buclar: Pierfrancesco Poli/Oslavio di Credico Raimondo Bidebent: Lorenzo Gaetani/Franco Ventriglia Alisa: Anna Lia Bazzani/Sandra Del Grande Normanno: Ernesto Civolani/Bruno Bulgarelli
I heard this performance that night from the radio...I was shocked..I used to hear all the Met performances each week..Our beloved Anna's performance seemed a God's gift for me...a n admirer of her in the far away Greece...
Agree, Stephen Collins. So she had a bad afternoon, I saw her five times live, including Lucia in the mid-sixties, when she got ten curtain calls and roses from a Boston audience, and Violetta in the early 1970's, when her "Amami Alfredo" made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. No, don't trash Anna. None of us will ever know what really happened that day.
I agree that this recording is disturbing - and, although it's not something I plan to listen to again, I can't say it should be removed from UA-cam. It's part of the "Moffo story" - the amazing talent that did so much, and burned out so fast. I can't even begin to imagine what she must have been feeling - the panic/terror inside - hearing herself singing, this night, knowing what the score was going to be demanding of a voice in that condition - and in front of an audience.
What impresses me about this performance is how well Moffo has summed up what will work and what won't. By this stage of the performance she know the part of the voice above top staff E is relatively clear, but she has no ability to sustain, and no resonance, except in the high. In this condition, She's going for broke here, folks. In this situation, I would probably make the same choices as Moffo.
The most memorable opera performance for me was in Nov, 1957: Lucia by Anna Moffo. That was one year after her Butterfly triumph on Italian TV. After her Mad Scene, there was a 10 min screaming ovation - something I have not seen since then. Carol Fox, GM of Chicago Lyric, brought her to Chicago. Everyone in the audience, especially I, fell madly in love with her - reminiscent of her Italy triumph. Went backstage to meet her. Most gracious. What a beauty !
Same exact thing happened to Gianna d'Angelo in 1967-(Rigoletto).She had Hong Kong flu, which was epidemic in the US at the time. But d'Angelo didn't make it through the opera: she stopped in the middle of Caro Nome, and was brutally booed by the claque! and then FIRED by Dame Rudy Bing herself thereafter. Moffo was suffering from swollen cords, bad case of pharyngitus. IF she did drink b4 the performance, I don't blame her; I would've gotten hammered!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Love my Anna~
It is unfair to the paying audience if a Soprano knows damn well that she should not come out of the wings. After listening to Madam Moffo in the first two acts, the Met had plenty of time to call for another singer to step in for her. Anna apparently decided to grit her teeth and get through this nightmarish sound Mad Scene. Thank God this was at LaScala or the some other Italian house. They would have booed her back to the cloak room.
If she IS drunk, I applaud her voice first of all, for the fact that her top was still so pristine after drinking alcohol! Actually not that bad. I applaud her for pulling this off. Brava.
agreed. I also remember that she was sick. I'm pretty sure she never had a drinking problem. Too much negativity in the opera world, I think. Sometimes hardworking and talented people for whatever reason just can't deliver the goods. That's just how it is.
You are right. "Ardon Gl'incensi is long and painfully drawn out. She was acting her way through it-cords were swollen, anyone could hear that-probably flu. But the acuti was fine; the lower and middle-range (where a good part of the Mad Scene is sung) was her main hurdle vocally-once she got up there, it was fine. In fact: she PINGED the high Eb~
i have a feeling that if you can't see what's happening you can't appreciate it fully. I suspect that she's sacrificing singing for some acting choices, I mean after all Lucia is mad. If there's any doubt listen to the high notes. Not to mention the duet with the flute...much more precise then you think.
Lennie McKenzie I believe that Lucia was a standard at the Met that time. Since the audience is applauding this so enthusiastically, I suspecf you are right.
Nothing in this performance equals what she had previously been capable of. This was the result of ongoing, increasing vocal problems. It was the worst she ever sounded onstage, and her voice never returned to what it had been.
Every singer has bad nights. I think there's a compilation here of operatic disasters with many singers. There were many times after this Lucia when her voice was spot on. I have a live performance of "Pagliacci" from 1974 and her Nedda sounds very good there.
Anybody who really "gets it" doesn't care. Moffo, Munsel and Peters brought Hollywood glamour and yes even perhaps some Hollywood scuttlebutt as well, but thta's what changed the dying art form for the better! Anna: La Bellissima e una voce splendida~Ciao bella~
Part 2 (of my 2nd comment) - No one seems to mention the work she'd had done on her nose (to reshape it) in the 1960's... I bring this up, only because there is a danger (to singing) when fooling around with "the nose". (Streisand had refused to get a nose job, fearing it might damage her singing.) If you think about it, you send the sound up into the nasal passages for resonance - who knows if the nose work she'd had done might have inadvertently messed up her singing?
Superb technique. She was my first Violetta and will always be on the tops. I wouldn't call this "infamous" at all, it's a moment no singers want to have but it happened, leave her in peace already.
She is like a gourmet cook who burns part of the meal. Some of the singing is actually quite good, but too much is very poor. Moffo was a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice. This performance simply shouldn't have taken place, especially with Sutherland and Scotto singing Lucia around the same time.
As the Great Domingo would answer "Just like a homerun king who strikes out, it happens, and cracked notes only happen to singers, they are always at risk. It's like watching a ballerina fall. You applaud when they get back up and keep going."* Most of the previous comment are by mature adults who so understand. Which is refreshing, since so many comments are left by nihilistic juveniles who can't feel good until they make someone else feel bad, esp if about a singer who has done absolutely nothing to them. We've all seen them. I'm in agreement with those who challenge your decision to upload this rare episode of performance difficulty, esp since it is not representative and improves nothing and no one. Moffo refused to quit and fought to prevail. Brava. All uploaders of singers having a bad night do so because it makes them feel superior to an artist who is celebrated and famous for their talents and traits. Schadenfreude is never a good look. _*This would happen in interviews with silly American talk show hosts and hostesses who were clearly star-struck by him, nervous about knowing nothing about opera and trying to just get through the printed list of questions, the same tired old list shared by apparently every single talk show on the air in th 80s and 90s, which always included the ridiculous "So how long will you keep singing?" apparently clueless as to how it made them sound dense and ghoulish. Human tissue wears out. Violins can get fresh strings, one can't do that with vocal cords._
exnyker, one does not send the sound into the nasal cavity. In fact, a nasal sound will not 'cut' through an orchestra. It's the reason why the velopharingeal port must be closed, to send the sound into the vocal tract and actually resonate.
I don't think it was a good idea to post this. Moffo is obviously in great vocal distress. She was still in her late 30's here. She started very young and sang Mozart magnificently. Her Violetta in the late 50's and early 60's was also exquisite. She was also one of the most gorgeous women ever to appear on the opera stage. Her voice started to falter much too early and by 1975 she was all but finished. Too bad. May she rest in peace, and may she be remembered for her greater stuff.
Miss Peretyatko would be happy if she could perform such a Lucia I must admit I don´t like this Verismo version all too much It´s like Carla Fracci dancing with a cast
She certainly wasn't tipsy but sick-as we all are at sometimes. The point is that she did it, I imagine at considerable cost to her vocal chords and her general image of herself. HOW DARE anyone criticize this superb woman. Without discussion the most beautiful singer of her generation with a superb technique capable of perfect Mozart and with the slancio to do exciting puccini and verdi. Let the bitchy opera queens throw their handbags at someone else- DONT YOU DARE trash Anna steve
i didnt know that. ive heard that in the opera house she tried for more volume than she had, or needed, and that contributed. i adore moffo but her high notes, especially forte, always sounded so pressed and throttled (although in her prime ill listen to anything she did). also i dont think she was really a coloratura. just a really gifted lyric. maybe she sang a bit too high. hard to know though cause she was so young
@assindiastignani I totally agree with you! We 'll never thank enough Miss Moffo for all the beauty she gave to our poor world for so many years. We 'll never know either what happened to her that very day. Anything can happen to a sensitive human being. Operasdead maybe (and I quite agree to that) but Anna Moffo's memory and great art will live forever.
The saddest part about Moffo's decline is that you can still hear a hint of beauty underneath all the vocal wear and tear....that being said, this is really sad. I felt as though she sung roles that were perhaps to heavy for her voice, and also gave a high number of performances in a short amount of time which caused her to decline so early on.
I suppose that this is interesting as a historical document. Personally, I find it distasteful. The best thing to do is to listen to it once and then listen to any of the RCA recordings she made, e.g. Gilda, Violetta, Rondine etc at which point one realizes that, alongside a few bad things, there is a wealth of magnificent things.
It's not so bad, after all. The rectitativo sections are delivered in a verismo style (after all Lucia has gone nuts), the low notes and the release of the phrases are always problematic but there are still many beautiful moments. Anna Moffo in bad voice was still better than many sopranos we hear today in good voice... For instance, there's never the slightest hint of breathiness in the voice and the high notes are always in tune.
NedRorem if ever there was a “type” of scene in which an artist could be said to be exercising “artistic licence”, wouldn’t it be a “mad scene”?!? When a member of the Corps de Ballet shows up drunk and is out of step or exactly “anti-synchronized” with the other members, it is funny to mildly amusing, as in Leslie Browne’s performance in the “Ballet Within a Film” (Giselle, within “The Turning Point”)..... but when a renowned and talented artist succumbs to pressure from either bad management, poor self-image or lack of self-esteem that results I’m too many attempts to crowd or audience please, as well as this happening to rising ingénues (Cara in “Fame”) leading to fatal career or social life moves, it can be serious, dangerous and life-threatening, as well as a blow to one’s career. People can only withstand so much stress... the temptation to be “super-human” or a super-luminary can lead to early “burn-out” as in the recent instance of Susan Boyle.
I read somewhere that she was sick and wanted to cancel but was told by Rudolf Bing that if she did he might have to reconsider her future engagements at the Met and then blamed the whole debacle on her. As both are dead we will never know the truth but I think it's a shame that some people keep associating Moffo with this infamous Lucia broadcast and/or Thais recording. True both are bad but she did so much more that was excellent. Let us not remember her thus !
@voizovrsn I disagree w. you - but that's okay to disagree... as we BOTH seem to agree that Anna Moffo was one of the best (THE best, for me). The woman was wonderful, and her legacy of recordings stunning. In this performance, I hear some vocal deterioration. Impressive she got through it, hitting some difficult passages well - but I hear the deterioration. You don't - and that's great. Wondering if you've heard the rest of this performance - and if so, how was she?
She cracked on the first line she sang in the opera "Ancor non giunse". One could tell from the beginning that she was not in good voice. The rest of the performance wasn't as bad as the mad scene but it was clear that she was having vocal difficulty from the beginning of the opera.
Everyone is quite kind and generous. This was a disaster. By about 8:00 she has found a way around it, like a true warrior. Must have seemed like the longest mad scene ever! By 10:15 she is really coming around and sounds ok, not great, but never thought she'd make it.
Her vocal decline (all too soon) was tragic, for sure - and had to have been terrifying for Moffo, herself... Truthfully, any number of things could have contributed to her voice failing her, all too soon - individually, or collectively.
Yeah, she was embarrassed. You've made several comments on this video of a dead woman's most embarrassing professional moment. I don't get your point; were you one of the people who "paid good money" to be there and you're still mad about it? Or are you just being a bitch?
If this was a live recording in the opera house, it depends on where the recording device was located and what type was used. Acoustics are always different in various places. Was this a smuggled in recording device or a professional recording with the proper number of microphones placed on stage?
Someone just posted excerpts of this performance in Acts One and Two and she sounds fine with only a hit of unsteadiness and Nicolai Gedda is singing his head off. I think if she had called out after the second act this performance wouldn’t have been so derided.
You guys are WAY too hard on her....maybe she was sick......people get sick you know.....and yet she did a lot of very good things here You know - when a singer has an engagement at an Opera house -especially one as big as this one - if they don't feel 100% - they should be praised for making the effort.....Pavarotti once said that he could count on one hand the number of times that he felt really good on the day of the performance Give this poor lady a break!
BRAVO! BRAVISSIMO! VIVA LA MOFFO!!! I LOVE it. Totally in character and more entertaining than the boring, (waiting for the high note school audience) Sutherland, who didn't understand that there is a big gap between convincing madness and color by numbers madness singing.
There was a video on UA-cam of her singing at a Luncheon. Her voice was hard to listen to. She coughed after the high notes as though she was hurting her throat. I think it was recorded a few years before her death. Lot's of comments were begging the poster to please take it off of UA-cam. It was that bad! I watched the video and could not understand why Moffo would have sung in public. I am sure she knew that she could not sing any longer. You would have to see the video to understand.
Are you sure it was a few years before her death? She died in 2006... But in '74 (or sth about that time I'm not sure) she lost her voice. Maybe she sung because they didn't have anyone to come instead of her...
Yes, it was a few years before her death. I think it was a lunch / fund raiser sort of thing. Surely someone out there has this video. I wished I would have saved it.
Brent Audi Oh okay. I don't know. No matter how bad she sung there or here - she was a wonderful singer and everybody has bad days. I still love her and she has left us a lot of memorable, gorgeous recordings. So I think it's just better to enjoy these than those worse ones.
Krowa Paulinka I agree. I listen to her recordings quite a bit. She left us a great history of singing during a wonderful, wonderful period of Opera Greats.
No es mejor Lucia de Gran Anna Moffo, pero sigue siendo una de las mejores, sobre todo en actualidad operistica.... La reaction del publico es fantastica!!! Ahora en los teatros de opera no cantan así, dan pena.... BRAVA!!!
still better then any of todays pop singers:)) It`s pretty amazing she can sing coloratura with her voice gone. But her earlier Lucia is maybe the greatest.
You might remember that this is a "Mad Scene" the soprano is she is portraying is crazy, She just murdered her husband. Moffo sings on pitch, all the notes. She is not drunk, she is over-emoting. It may have been a bad choice to do this sort of over drama. I saw a performance that season which was not the broadcast, I did not like her portrayal and over acting, but she was not drunk. She overacted being crazy in this role.
Theodore Biele All notes are most definitely NOT on pitch. It's Moffo alright....but on a very bad night. She had vocal problems frequently towards the end of her career. The under the note attack that plagued her later performances is very noticeable here.
This performance is a legend in Met - and Moffo - history. As such it should be made available, and heard. It actually sounds better than I thought it would after reading about in Peter G. Davis's book "The American Opera Singer".
Well, it's hard to tell what was the reason for Anna Moffo, some say that anesthesia can cause trouble for the vocal cords (blood clotting). Pop singer Connie Francis lost her voice after failed 3rd or 4th nose job (then had some more to fix it).
From the New York Times: By the late 1960's, her voice was often unreliable. In his book "The American Opera Singer," the critic Peter G. Davis writes of a now infamous 1969 Saturday afternoon broadcast performance of "Lucia" at the Met. Rudolf Bing, the general manager, was so dismayed by her singing that he considered stopping the performance before Lucia's daunting "mad scene" was broadcast to millions.
@KathrynARyder please, please, tell us how was the rest of that performance the audience appears to have enjoyed themselves ... :) sorry, not to bother you (Wikipedia has it wrong too), but for the sake of correctness - Bing was never a Sir - he was given a CBE which does not entitle one to... one more, for the record: as different form Callas, Tebaldi, and many other greatest sopranos of 20th ct., Moffo never had tomatoes thrown on her in 'la Scala
When excusing Moffo here, no one ever mentions the Opera News interview where she claimed to have sung Norma in Europe a lot. The actual number she sang: 0. I think she was delusional, not "brave".
Like Callas, Moffo became enamoured with a very wealthy man and that lifestyle took its tol l on her voice and her sense of theatre. She is trying [in both senses of the word]] here but simply cannot overcome the effects of debauchery in her private life.
Yo no pienso que fue una mala performance, las personas de afuera solo saben criticar,y no se dan cuenta que todos nosotros somos humanos y asi como los grandes cantantes tambien tenemos dias malos, Asi mismo quien no conoce música ni si da cuenta que hubo algunos errores aun mas en esa ária que se presta para errores pues supuostamente esta loca. Yo la amo y pues lo siento que no estea mas entre nosotros. Great ANNA MOFFO.
Her Gilda in the so-called June Festival at the Met some years later was far worse than this--if you can imagine. And evidently her Liu a few nights later was atrocious; she was fired/withdrew before the third act. The Met Chorus sent flowers--to her replacement that night!
Hmmm . . . "A tipsy Anna Moffo" you say . . . but "tipsy" . . . ?! WHO SAYS?! Where's the proof?! Anna Moffo had a vocal breakdown a few years before this broadcast, so that might well explain any bad performance. In any case, you should be VERY careful about possibly libelling! someone: Smart-'art' comments don't make smart people!!
Unlike some others, I think it's instructive to hear great singers struggling at less than their best. From this performance it is clear that Moffo had a very good idea of what the voice could and couldn't do that afternoon. She realized that the top and most of the acuti were still working and probably thought that since it was Lucia and not Cavalleria, she would still be able to deliver what most people expect. The cadenza and the E-flat at the end proves this. It is also important to remember that sometimes covers for performances weren't always available for various reasons, ie. sickness, etc., and she may have had no choice. I think this performance shows bravery and pluck.
I agree. Someone just posted excerpts of the first and second acts and she sounds fine there with only a hint of unsteadiness. If she had bailed out after Act Two, this performance wouldn’t have gotten the infamous reputation it did. At the end of the day, we are all human.
I don't give a shit about this recording. Shit happens. Moffo had an incredible voice and incredible vocal technique, agility and ease in doing anything. She indeed was one of the greatest. I prefer her over Callas and other great sopranos in many roles.
She may have not been in top form that night, so what. Too much criticism.
She had a magnificent voice.
mildred grossman Too true ! I wish I sounded this good on a GOOD day !
She had a beautiful voice and should never have been performing that night. I want a singer who is ready to perform and if not she should have refused and allowed an understudy to sing that evening. We pay 200 to 500 a nite and deserve the best. Of course, some notes can be missed when it is a live performance but not the whole piece.
@@rothvinbosley1335 I agree! For both the sake of the singer as well as the paying audience. Just like with the famous (or infamous) "Rome walkout" of Callas! She KNEW she should not have performed, but tried anyway, only to then have to give up due to her illness, and cancel the rest of the performance. Performers should not be made to perform when ill. Period!
People pay hundreds to hear these great singers and then to come and hear her trying to sing this difficult aria that night drunk. Inexcusable.
@@rothvinbosley1335 Was she for sure drunk, though? There seems to be a lot of debate on what the situation really was. Regardless, though...she should not have sung that night. And its too bad the recording still exists. She was a magnificent artist, and I'm glad that there are so many more really great recordings of her.
I found this on a blog from a fan who was there that night. "...The following weekend I was at the Met and ran into her (Moffo) in the lobby. She knew me as a frequent backstage visitor and she said hello. It was very awkward; I asked her how she was and she said 'I'm sick...didn't you hear the broadcast?' She obviously felt as uncomfortable as I did." Imagine trying to get through the Mad Scene knowing you're sick, your voice is failing you, AND you are being broadcast live...
AND she had taken cold medicine earlier to help her get through it. She had sung Lucia several times at the MET yet this was her first (and only) broadcast of Lucia di Lammermoor, and she did not want to disappoint!!!
this is only a twinkle in her career. Listen to her Rachmaninoff vocalizes..bar none world class singing. Singing comes from the soul, if her soul was restless her voice will translate into that. Her technique was impeccable overall and thats what her legacy beholds for us! Thank you great Anna
Well if she was sick, then it's a testimony to her professionalism.
Sick? You mean drunk.
The best thing about this video is that it is only seen by 13,000 viewers. Happily Miss Moffo's other videos solo or with other artists are generally viewed 50,000 plus viewers. I recently read that Miss Moffo knew that she was not in good voice for this Lucia performance, but she decided to on against the advice of others,Thankfully Miss Moffo's legacy will always outlive this one bad Lucia performance.
We all need to cut each other and her some slack, agreed her seemingly effortless Coloratura Work was just spot on 99% of the time. She unfortunately got entangled in the Jet Set of Europe and rather burned herself out....but what a Glorious Voice and easy on the Eye...!! Some stars that burn brightly in the beginning become super-novas way to soon. She left a large catalog of Music having been married to "Mr. RCA", and she sang with the best of them....You are missed so much - Gone to Soon..!
If you heard Anna Moffo before whatever happened to her voice, she was a truly magnificent coloratura soprano; arguably one of the finest of the last century. Hard to believe what happened!
GreatPerformers1 I couldn't agree more. She wasn't Sutherland but she was Moffo.
ya she sure wasn’t Sutherland, we can actually understand what Moffo is singing....high notes aren’t everything
@@Lechatnoir3 my thoughts exactly Moffo also had more delicacy and subtlety Sutherland attacked and dominated everything
REALLY, REALLY?? You are using this lousy parlando half assed performance to criticize Joan Sutherland?? You really are an a**! Moffo should never have sung that performance if she was voiceless, that’s all. If you wish to criticize both Callas and Sutherland to “praise” Moffo, then be honest about the merits of all three. While Moffo had a very attractive and feminine sound-not here-she never reached the artistry, interpretation and technique of Callas and Sutherland respectively.
That said, there are times where she sounds lost on the moors and is calling the hogs home. Born in what, 1932, she should have been in her prime but evidently wasn’t. Hell, even the flutist sounds in better voice than she does! However, I enjoy many of her recordings and in several she is wonderful.
She drank.
I've listened to this a few times and I've came to realisation that I actually quite like it. She really does sound *mad* . Like some people here I also think that her acting just took over her singing, perhaps as a conscious choice as she was definitely sick and struggling. But the high notes are still wonderful. It's really not that bad. And I think the audience quite liked it. It surely wasn't her best day though.
This is so sad but so real at the same time. Even the professionals have bad days.
Not sure what happened here but Anna Moffo truly had one of the most beautiful operatic voices, if this is your first time hearing her please go and listen to some of her other recordings, this one does not do her justice. My first time hearing her voice was a recording of 'Vocalise' it made me cry and it still does today.
Agreed. No explanation was ever given. One story has that she begged to cancel but Sir Rudolph Bing would not allow her to.
She drank a lot.
I dont think this is bad, maybe not the best. The really sad thing is, this is a million times better than what we hear today in opera.
Well, I think this is absolutely horrible and, as for today, I've heard *infinitely* better Mad Scenes even at my state opera company, from "unknown" sopranos.
Nonsense. It was awful and several recent Lucias have been much better. Ridiculous past-worship. People had bad nights then too.
Yes, it is terrible. Even the mediocre singers today aren‘t that terrible. But she had a bad night. She was so wonderful in her early years. But listen to Oropesa sing this - only because they are new it doesn‘t mean they are always bad. And obly because they are from the past it doesn‘t mean that they are automatically great
You try singing the role of Lucia when your throat, sinuses and lungs are sick ! Her voice was just not responding on that day , but she didn't feel that she could cancel . Really I am sure that she would have been happier back home in bed with a warm drink. Anna Moffo remains a great singer in 20th century history who left a legacy of beautiful performances and recordings. Her vocal crisis was sad , but she was not the only high profile singer to live such a thing. Let's keep the memory of the beautiful things she did alive .
From what is to be read about Ms. Moffo, she suffered a vocal breakdown in 1968 (from over work) and never fully recovered. If so, then this would be at a time when she would have been struggling to regain her form (rather than being tipsy). It would be sad to take joy from her bad fortune at this time. (And certainly it isn't the disaster that the title of this clip indicates it is.) There is is much to be admired about her career and other youtube clips of her in top form.
Wilson Ochoa Can' t agree with you. It's an embarrassing disaster. There are notes she attacks like a pop singer - totally flat with no vibrato.
Wilson Ochoa Beverly Peck Johnson tried to help her but couldn't.
This was actually the crisis. She'd been in worsening trouble leading up to this, but had managed not to make any bad mistakes. This was the performance where her voice fell apart, and she never fully recovered.
Well it is terribly sad when you know what she sounded like previously. Certainly nothing to celebrate I will listen to her in her prime and be grateful
Just what every opera singer wants for their legacy. Their vocal breakdown remembered and celebrated decades later.
No celebration just sadness at her exploitation
@@danarzechula3769 her story really is so sad. The fact that such a beautiful voice was lost due to the negative influence of people in her life forcing her to become so overworked. A lot of similarities with Callas I think. I really feel for these women. I truly think that Anna Moffo had one of the most beautiful lyric coloratura voices I've ever heard, when she was in her prime of course.
Sad. I wish I would've read this first. I just saw Anna Moffo and Mad Scene and got super excited. I forget the year, but I have a recording of her doing this and it is still (after 40 years of listening to it) the best performance I've ever heard of this piece. The poster should feel some shame at belittling what was one of the greatest voices of the 20th century.
Andrew Owens Too true ! I wish I sounded this good on a good day !!
The studio recording she made with Carlo Bergonzi, under the baton of Georges Prêtre, is the gold standard of Lucia against which I judge all others. Including, yes, the Callas recordings.
Let the hatemail ensue.
@stevenlevasee6742: No hate mail but you should have an audiologist check your hearing. Or better, LISTEN TO THE RECORDINGS BY JOAN SUTHERLAND. You can’t help yourself; you don’t have a look.
Moffo e' stata uno dei grandi soprani "autonomi" del 900 e imparagonabile con nessun'altra collega. Lucia credo che psicologicamente non fosse un suo ruolo come anche Gilda, aveva un timbro di colore troppo "sano". Pure li ha cantati benissimo e meglio di altre. Callas in Lucia non si discute.
(Part 2 of my comment): And yet, she kept going. Yes, she was able to sing well, after this - and yes, she also sang much worse, later on. (Much like Garland.) It's all part of her story, though - a reminder to all of us, how fragile a talent can be. I am so thankful that she recorded the massive body of work she did, when she did - and in magnificent voice, too. Her recordings are amazing - and no one can take that away from her. No one.
Anna Moffo was the best.
There is no way she was drunk or tipsy when she sang this. She doesnt make a single musical mistake and even if the voice sounds awful, she was together with the orchestra and didnt forget any of the text or music. No way an intoxicated person would get through a demanding Lucia mad scene.
+Acacia Bloom The poster was being kind when he described her as tipsy. This is pure shit. How's that?
Opera singing relies heavily on muscle memory. This was one of her signature roles so she could sing it in her sleep. She is obviously impaired as this is not how she should sound.
Um, how about the completely botched fiorature on “del ciel clemente”, just one example in this comically awful performance.
@@machovoce6826 most ungracious that's how's that
@@jonrupp98 nothing comic about a great artist being publically humiliated terribly sad but mad respect for her professionalism
By today's Met standards she is splendid. Nobody does proper staccato today.
Absolutely! Moffo gave us a wealth of recordings (& performances) - amazingly beautiful vocals. This particular "Lucia" is unfortunate (as is the "Thais" you mentioned) - and is definitely not how I will remember Moffo - but, when put in perspective, it only reinforces how brilliant she was, when in good voice. And, for me? No one compares to Moffo's exquisite vocal beauty. She was the best.
Sad to hear but she was so brave to proceed. A real pro! The most beautiful voice of her generation! Remarkable one of a kind artist and above all musician!
First time I ever heard this, acting this out more than singing it. I guess she tried to save the performance as best she can. I would have called in my stand-by. Later on she did have lots of vocal problems. Her voice quit on her to early, a better tech. might have been the answer. I always loved her and this off day just makes her more human...Brava Anna for all the talent you gave us through the years!
Are you sure this isn't Gruberova from last month?
Wow... bitchy...yet funny and sadly true. Don't Didn't and Wont ever like Edita's voice. This mad scene, however, is a sad scene. For about ten years she was truly exceptional...o so not here.....
You, sir, just won both internet and my heart.
Even today with nearly 70, la Gruberova is much more better than this particular performance. Sorry I loved Moffo too but this is a no go!
No this was Olga Peretyatko-Mariotti from last evening's LUCIA at the MET.
@@KathrynARyder No. You can tell on some of her sustained notes, that this was unfortunately Moffo! I wonder what the hell happened? I never heard her sing like this!
She was not "tipsy." Moffo's fans had been worrying about signs of impending trouble for quite some time by this day. She had sounded unwell in the first two acts of this, and by the Mad Scene she had very little left. It was a crisis from which she recovered enough to fulfill her commitments, and even to record, but she never again had the lush, beautiful voice of her early career. This recording is unbearably sad.
51 years ago! I still remember this broadcast. I listened to it while holding the current issue of Opera News. She certainly threw herself into the role!!! Was she drunk or fighting the effects of cold medicine (as I later heard?). She struggled, but she got through it and the cadenza was not bad. She even hit the high Eb. She had not lost her voice, or her nerve! Her Gilda broadcast two months previous was lovely and without fault. About 8 years later, Beverly Sills sang a broadcast Lucia that was excruciating! It broke my heart because she was a great artist but this role did her in that day. Renata Scotto sang a Lucia broadcast in about 1972 that was not bad until she came to the two high Ebs ... which she just wailed instead of sung them!!!
I heard that performace in the radio...l was moved so much...so much pain in her voice...It moved my imaginatio eyes,giving me the impression l was watching my beloved Anna on stage...thank you for this post..
is there a complete registration?
so, I think that's one of these performances:
1 Oct. 1969,
XV Festival d'Opéras Italiens -l Théâtre Municipal de Beaulieu di Lausanne
dirige Paolo Peloso,
maestro del coro Fulvio Angius,
Regia di Sandro Bolchi
Anna Moffo (Lucia) e
Anna Lia Bazzani (Alisa),
tenori lirico Flaviano Labò (Edgardo),
lirico-eroico Oslavio Di Credico (Arturo Buklaw) e
lirico Ernesto Civolani (Normanno),
baritono lirico Walter Alberti (Enrico Ashton),
basso serio Franco Ventriglia (Raimondo)}
OR
5 - 19 gennaio 1969
Teatro Comunale di Bologna
Paolo Peloso, direttore d’orchestra;
Sandro Bolchi, regia.
Lord Enrico Ashton: Walter Alberti/Attilio D’Orazi/Franco Bordoni
Lucia: Renata Scotto/Maria Luisa Cioni
Sir Edgardo: Flaviano Labò/Giacomo Aragall/Manlio Rocchi
Lord Arturo Buclar: Pierfrancesco Poli/Oslavio di Credico
Raimondo Bidebent: Lorenzo Gaetani/Franco Ventriglia
Alisa: Anna Lia Bazzani/Sandra Del Grande
Normanno: Ernesto Civolani/Bruno Bulgarelli
I heard this performance that night from the radio...I was shocked..I used to hear all the Met performances each week..Our beloved Anna's performance seemed a God's gift for me...a n admirer of her in the far away Greece...
Agree, Stephen Collins. So she had a bad afternoon, I saw her five times live, including Lucia in the mid-sixties, when she got ten curtain calls and roses from a Boston audience, and Violetta in the early 1970's, when her "Amami Alfredo" made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. No, don't trash Anna. None of us will ever know what really happened that day.
Dont`t blame her...she became a cancer on her womb too soon and died... but she should`t have sung in that condition!!!
I agree that this recording is disturbing - and, although it's not something I plan to listen to again, I can't say it should be removed from UA-cam. It's part of the "Moffo story" - the amazing talent that did so much, and burned out so fast. I can't even begin to imagine what she must have been feeling - the panic/terror inside - hearing herself singing, this night, knowing what the score was going to be demanding of a voice in that condition - and in front of an audience.
What impresses me about this performance is how well Moffo has summed up what will work and what won't. By this stage of the performance she know the part of the voice above top staff E is relatively clear, but she has no ability to sustain, and no resonance, except in the high. In this condition, She's going for broke here, folks. In this situation, I would probably make the same choices as Moffo.
The most memorable opera performance for me was in Nov, 1957: Lucia by Anna Moffo. That was one year after her Butterfly triumph on Italian TV. After her Mad Scene, there was a 10 min screaming ovation - something I have not seen since then. Carol Fox, GM of Chicago Lyric, brought her to Chicago. Everyone in the audience, especially I, fell madly in love with her - reminiscent of her Italy triumph. Went backstage to meet her. Most gracious. What a beauty !
Same exact thing happened to Gianna d'Angelo in 1967-(Rigoletto).She had Hong Kong flu, which was epidemic in the US at the time. But d'Angelo didn't make it through the opera: she stopped in the middle of Caro Nome, and was brutally booed by the claque! and then FIRED by Dame Rudy Bing herself thereafter. Moffo was suffering from swollen cords, bad case of pharyngitus. IF she did drink b4 the performance, I don't blame her; I would've gotten hammered!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Love my Anna~
It is unfair to the paying audience if a Soprano knows damn well that she should not come out of the wings. After listening to Madam Moffo in the first two acts, the Met had plenty of time to call for another singer to step in for her. Anna apparently decided to grit her teeth and get through this nightmarish sound Mad Scene. Thank God this was at LaScala or the some other Italian house. They would have booed her back to the cloak room.
If she IS drunk, I applaud her voice first of all, for the fact that her top was still so pristine after drinking alcohol! Actually not that bad. I applaud her for pulling this off. Brava.
agreed. I also remember that she was sick. I'm pretty sure she never had a drinking problem. Too much negativity in the opera world, I think. Sometimes hardworking and talented people for whatever reason just can't deliver the goods. That's just how it is.
Oh she did have a drinking problem. My voice teacher was acquainted with her.
I love Moffo, but clearly there was something else going on besides just being sick that night.
You are right. "Ardon Gl'incensi is long and painfully drawn out. She was acting her way through it-cords were swollen, anyone could hear that-probably flu. But the acuti was fine; the lower and middle-range (where a good part of the Mad Scene is sung) was her main hurdle vocally-once she got up there, it was fine. In fact: she PINGED the high Eb~
i have a feeling that if you can't see what's happening you can't appreciate it fully. I suspect that she's sacrificing singing for some acting choices, I mean after all Lucia is mad. If there's any doubt listen to the high notes. Not to mention the duet with the flute...much more precise then you think.
Lennie McKenzie I believe that Lucia was a standard at the Met that time. Since the audience is applauding this so enthusiastically, I suspecf you are right.
Nothing in this performance equals what she had previously been capable of. This was the result of ongoing, increasing vocal problems. It was the worst she ever sounded onstage, and her voice never returned to what it had been.
Great artists have the privilege ti have bad nights and still ravish the audience … As we can hear the audience's applause at the end..
Every singer has bad nights. I think there's a compilation here of operatic disasters with many singers. There were many times after this Lucia when her voice was spot on. I have a live performance of "Pagliacci" from 1974 and her Nedda sounds very good there.
Anybody who really "gets it" doesn't care. Moffo, Munsel and Peters brought Hollywood glamour and yes even perhaps some Hollywood scuttlebutt as well, but thta's what changed the dying art form for the better! Anna: La Bellissima e una voce splendida~Ciao bella~
Part 2 (of my 2nd comment) - No one seems to mention the work she'd had done on her nose (to reshape it) in the 1960's... I bring this up, only because there is a danger (to singing) when fooling around with "the nose". (Streisand had refused to get a nose job, fearing it might damage her singing.) If you think about it, you send the sound up into the nasal passages for resonance - who knows if the nose work she'd had done might have inadvertently messed up her singing?
Superb technique. She was my first Violetta and will always be on the tops. I wouldn't call this "infamous" at all, it's a moment no singers want to have but it happened, leave her in peace already.
She is like a gourmet cook who burns part of the meal. Some of the singing is actually quite good, but too much is very poor. Moffo was a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice. This performance simply shouldn't have taken place, especially with Sutherland and Scotto singing Lucia around the same time.
Nobody protected her just used up her voice too soon
As the Great Domingo would answer "Just like a homerun king who strikes out, it happens, and cracked notes only happen to singers, they are always at risk. It's like watching a ballerina fall. You applaud when they get back up and keep going."* Most of the previous comment are by mature adults who so understand. Which is refreshing, since so many comments are left by nihilistic juveniles who can't feel good until they make someone else feel bad, esp if about a singer who has done absolutely nothing to them. We've all seen them.
I'm in agreement with those who challenge your decision to upload this rare episode of performance difficulty, esp since it is not representative and improves nothing and no one. Moffo refused to quit and fought to prevail. Brava. All uploaders of singers having a bad night do so because it makes them feel superior to an artist who is celebrated and famous for their talents and traits. Schadenfreude is never a good look.
_*This would happen in interviews with silly American talk show hosts and hostesses who were clearly star-struck by him, nervous about knowing nothing about opera and trying to just get through the printed list of questions, the same tired old list shared by apparently every single talk show on the air in th 80s and 90s, which always included the ridiculous "So how long will you keep singing?" apparently clueless as to how it made them sound dense and ghoulish. Human tissue wears out. Violins can get fresh strings, one can't do that with vocal cords._
Thank God this was not at La Scala, Rome or some other Italian opera house. The audience response would have been vicious from beginning to end.
exnyker, one does not send the sound into the nasal cavity. In fact, a nasal sound will not 'cut' through an orchestra. It's the reason why the velopharingeal port must be closed, to send the sound into the vocal tract and actually resonate.
I don't think it was a good idea to post this. Moffo is obviously in great vocal distress. She was still in her late 30's here. She started very young and sang Mozart magnificently. Her Violetta in the late 50's and early 60's was also exquisite. She was also one of the most gorgeous women ever to appear on the opera stage. Her voice started to falter much too early and by 1975 she was all but finished. Too bad. May she rest in peace, and may she be remembered for her greater stuff.
And there is so much of her great stuff out there thank heaven
Miss Peretyatko would be happy if she could perform such a Lucia
I must admit I don´t like this Verismo version all too much
It´s like Carla Fracci dancing with a cast
Let’s hear it for the flutist. I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be to accompany her solo at a moment like this.
She certainly wasn't tipsy but sick-as we all are at sometimes. The point is that she did it, I imagine at considerable cost to her vocal chords and her general image of herself. HOW DARE anyone criticize this superb woman. Without discussion the most beautiful singer of her generation with a superb technique capable of perfect Mozart and with the slancio to do exciting puccini and verdi. Let the bitchy opera queens throw their handbags at someone else-
DONT YOU DARE trash Anna
steve
i didnt know that. ive heard that in the opera house she tried for more volume than she had, or needed, and that contributed. i adore moffo but her high notes, especially forte, always sounded so pressed and throttled (although in her prime ill listen to anything she did). also i dont think she was really a coloratura. just a really gifted lyric. maybe she sang a bit too high. hard to know though cause she was so young
Miss Moffo may have had a tough night, but if we were able to see hear onstage, we would have cheered for her mad Lucia.
@assindiastignani I totally agree with you! We 'll never thank enough Miss Moffo for all the beauty she gave to our poor world for so many years. We 'll never know either what happened to her that very day. Anything can happen to a sensitive human being. Operasdead maybe (and I quite agree to that) but Anna Moffo's memory and great art will live forever.
The saddest part about Moffo's decline is that you can still hear a hint of beauty underneath all the vocal wear and tear....that being said, this is really sad. I felt as though she sung roles that were perhaps to heavy for her voice, and also gave a high number of performances in a short amount of time which caused her to decline so early on.
I suppose that this is interesting as a historical document. Personally, I find it distasteful. The best thing to do is to listen to it once and then listen to any of the RCA recordings she made, e.g. Gilda, Violetta, Rondine etc at which point one realizes that, alongside a few bad things, there is a wealth of magnificent things.
+Stephen Collins Her recording of Lucia di Lammemoor was outstanding.
I agree with your comment about her fine legacy. I have no interest in listening to this particular recording. It is a mere curiosity.
Stephen Collins Nice comment, and I think you're right.
Moffo was one the greatest singers of them all. You cannot take that away from her.
I totally agree with you. The distaste is at the fact that it exists at all. It should not have been released
It's not so bad, after all. The rectitativo sections are delivered in a verismo style (after all Lucia has gone nuts), the low notes and the release of the phrases are always problematic but there are still many beautiful moments. Anna Moffo in bad voice was still better than many sopranos we hear today in good voice... For instance, there's never the slightest hint of breathiness in the voice and the high notes are always in tune.
NedRorem if ever there was a “type” of scene in which an artist could be said to be exercising “artistic licence”, wouldn’t it be a “mad scene”?!? When a member of the Corps de Ballet shows up drunk and is out of step or exactly “anti-synchronized” with the other members, it is funny to mildly amusing, as in Leslie Browne’s performance in the “Ballet Within a Film” (Giselle, within “The Turning Point”)..... but when a renowned and talented artist succumbs to pressure from either bad management, poor self-image or lack of self-esteem that results I’m too many attempts to crowd or audience please, as well as this happening to rising ingénues (Cara in “Fame”) leading to fatal career or social life moves, it can be serious, dangerous and life-threatening, as well as a blow to one’s career. People can only withstand so much stress... the temptation to be “super-human” or a super-luminary can lead to early “burn-out” as in the recent instance of Susan Boyle.
She should of called management and said “I am sick I can’t do it sorry”.
I read somewhere that she was sick and wanted to cancel but was told by Rudolf Bing that if she did he might have to reconsider her future engagements at the Met and then blamed the whole debacle on her. As both are dead we will never know the truth but I think it's a shame that some people keep associating Moffo with this infamous Lucia broadcast and/or Thais recording. True both are bad but she did so much more that was excellent. Let us not remember her thus !
@1932moffo: I’d blame Bing; he was an a**.
@voizovrsn I disagree w. you - but that's okay to disagree... as we BOTH seem to agree that Anna Moffo was one of the best (THE best, for me). The woman was wonderful, and her legacy of recordings stunning. In this performance, I hear some vocal deterioration. Impressive she got through it, hitting some difficult passages well - but I hear the deterioration. You don't - and that's great. Wondering if you've heard the rest of this performance - and if so, how was she?
She cracked on the first line she sang in the opera "Ancor non giunse". One could tell from the beginning that she was not in good voice. The rest of the performance wasn't as bad as the mad scene but it was clear that she was having vocal difficulty from the beginning of the opera.
Mejor qué cualquier soprano de ahora . Aunque no tuviera una buena noche . Bravaaaaaaaa !
Everyone is quite kind and generous. This was a disaster. By about 8:00 she has found a way around it, like a true warrior. Must have seemed like the longest mad scene ever! By 10:15 she is really coming around and sounds ok, not great, but never thought she'd make it.
Her vocal decline (all too soon) was tragic, for sure - and had to have been terrifying for Moffo, herself... Truthfully, any number of things could have contributed to her voice failing her, all too soon - individually, or collectively.
This should be ignored. She made a good studio recording and her film of Lucia is on UA-cam.
Tiffin59 Hard to ignore. People in the audience paid good money to be there. She sounds dreadful. What a shame. I'm sure she was embarrassed.
Yeah, she was embarrassed. You've made several comments on this video of a dead woman's most embarrassing professional moment. I don't get your point; were you one of the people who "paid good money" to be there and you're still mad about it? Or are you just being a bitch?
If this was a live recording in the opera house, it depends on where the recording device was located and what type was used. Acoustics are always different in various places. Was this a smuggled in recording device or a professional recording with the proper number of microphones placed on stage?
William Pelto “ live broadcast” of a disaster.
Someone just posted excerpts of this performance in Acts One and Two and she sounds fine with only a hit of unsteadiness and Nicolai Gedda is singing his head off. I think if she had called out after the second act this performance wouldn’t have been so derided.
You guys are WAY too hard on her....maybe she was sick......people get sick you know.....and yet she did a lot of very good things here
You know - when a singer has an engagement at an Opera house -especially one as big as this one - if they don't feel 100% - they should be praised for making the effort.....Pavarotti once said that he could count on one hand the number of times that he felt really good on the day of the performance
Give this poor lady a break!
BRAVO! BRAVISSIMO!
VIVA LA MOFFO!!!
I LOVE it. Totally in character and more entertaining than the boring, (waiting for the high note school audience) Sutherland, who didn't understand that there is a big gap between convincing madness and color by numbers madness singing.
There was a video on UA-cam of her singing at a Luncheon. Her voice was hard to listen to. She coughed after the high notes as though she was hurting her throat. I think it was recorded a few years before her death. Lot's of comments were begging the poster to please take it off of UA-cam. It was that bad! I watched the video and could not understand why Moffo would have sung in public. I am sure she knew that she could not sing any longer. You would have to see the video to understand.
Are you sure it was a few years before her death? She died in 2006... But in '74 (or sth about that time I'm not sure) she lost her voice. Maybe she sung because they didn't have anyone to come instead of her...
Yes, it was a few years before her death. I think it was a lunch / fund raiser sort of thing. Surely someone out there has this video. I wished I would have saved it.
Brent Audi Oh okay. I don't know. No matter how bad she sung there or here - she was a wonderful singer and everybody has bad days. I still love her and she has left us a lot of memorable, gorgeous recordings. So I think it's just better to enjoy these than those worse ones.
Krowa Paulinka
I agree. I listen to her recordings quite a bit. She left us a great history of singing during a wonderful, wonderful period of Opera Greats.
No es mejor Lucia de Gran Anna Moffo, pero sigue siendo una de las mejores, sobre todo en actualidad operistica....
La reaction del publico es fantastica!!!
Ahora en los teatros de opera no cantan así, dan pena....
BRAVA!!!
still better then any of todays pop singers:)) It`s pretty amazing she can sing coloratura with her voice gone. But her earlier Lucia is maybe the greatest.
You might remember that this is a "Mad Scene" the soprano is she is portraying is crazy, She just murdered her husband. Moffo sings on pitch, all the notes. She is not drunk, she is over-emoting. It may have been a bad choice to do this sort of over drama. I saw a performance that season which was not the broadcast, I did not like her portrayal and over acting, but she was not drunk. She overacted being crazy in this role.
All notes on pitch. Not tipsy. Overemoting, perhaps. Not confident sufficiently to perform. Your guess as good as mine.
Theodore Biele All notes are most definitely NOT on pitch. It's Moffo alright....but on a very bad night. She had vocal problems frequently towards the end of her career. The under the note attack that plagued her later performances is very noticeable here.
DavidAsset78 YES! Truly, this is the most horrible performance I have ever heard in my life.
All the cadenza + high E flat at the end on a bad?! Brava Ms Moffo!
Do you have the "Spargi d'amaro pianto" part?
This performance is a legend in Met - and Moffo - history. As such it should be made available, and heard. It actually sounds better than I thought it would after reading about in Peter G. Davis's book "The American Opera Singer".
👍🏽💜 RIP
On a bad day she still outdos me by a landslide ahaha
isn't this Anna Netrebko?
Nathan Davis. VERY, VERY FUNNY !!
Well, it's hard to tell what was the reason for Anna Moffo, some say that anesthesia can cause trouble for the vocal cords (blood clotting). Pop singer Connie Francis lost her voice after failed 3rd or 4th nose job (then had some more to fix it).
How did she sound in the rest of the opera? .... Are there more selections on YT?
From the New York Times:
By the late 1960's, her voice was often unreliable. In his book "The American Opera Singer," the critic Peter G. Davis writes of a now infamous 1969 Saturday afternoon broadcast performance of "Lucia" at the Met. Rudolf Bing, the general manager, was so dismayed by her singing that he considered stopping the performance before Lucia's daunting "mad scene" was broadcast to millions.
@KathrynARyder please, please, tell us how was the rest of that performance
the audience appears to have enjoyed themselves ... :)
sorry, not to bother you (Wikipedia has it wrong too), but for the sake of correctness - Bing was never a Sir - he was given a CBE which does not entitle one to...
one more, for the record: as different form Callas, Tebaldi, and many other greatest sopranos of 20th ct., Moffo never had tomatoes thrown on her in 'la Scala
When excusing Moffo here, no one ever mentions the Opera News interview where she claimed to have sung Norma in Europe a lot. The actual number she sang: 0. I think she was delusional, not "brave".
Like Callas, Moffo became enamoured with a very wealthy man and that lifestyle took its tol l on her voice and her sense of theatre. She is trying [in both senses of the word]] here but simply cannot overcome the effects of debauchery in her private life.
Although her voice is so touching..so mooving..she speaks straight to heart...
Yo no pienso que fue una mala performance, las personas de afuera solo saben criticar,y no se dan cuenta que todos nosotros somos humanos y asi como los grandes cantantes tambien tenemos dias malos, Asi mismo quien no conoce música ni si da cuenta que hubo algunos errores aun mas en esa ária que se presta para errores pues supuostamente esta loca. Yo la amo y pues lo siento que no estea mas entre nosotros. Great ANNA MOFFO.
Why is there no picture?
As unfortunate as this is, as someone pointed out in the comments, Moffo improves significantly at about the 8 minute mark.
The audience loved her!
Her Gilda in the so-called June Festival at the Met some years later was far worse than this--if you can imagine. And evidently her Liu a few nights later was atrocious; she was fired/withdrew before the third act. The Met Chorus sent flowers--to her replacement that night!
Hmmm . . .
"A tipsy Anna Moffo" you say . . .
but "tipsy" . . . ?! WHO SAYS?! Where's the proof?!
Anna Moffo had a vocal breakdown a few years before this broadcast, so that might well explain any bad performance.
In any case, you should be VERY careful about possibly libelling! someone:
Smart-'art' comments don't make smart people!!
It was unnecessary and cruel to publish this. There was much to admire and enjoy in her singing when she was in her prime.
Opera audiences will applaud ANYTHING…..regardless of how truly horrible the performance is.
At first the positive side: she really sounds mad here.... Let's just leave it at that
The chorus sounds more drunk to me.....
❤❤❤❤❤❤
Bravissima!