This complete performance was a BBC studio recording, broadcast on 11 March 1956. The source recording is part of the ‘Itter Broadcast Collection’ held by Lyrita Recorded Edition Trust. For this BBC studio recording the assembled cast presents all that was best in British singing of the time. It also captures Joan Sutherland – one of the greatest divas of any time – at an interim point in her early career. She had sung her first major role (Amelia, Un ballo in maschera) at Covent Garden in 1952. She had taken part in Britten’s Gloriana (1953) and created the role of Jennifer in Tippet’s The Midsummer Marriage (1955), but the ‘bel canto’ roles that would define her career did not appear until 1959 when she sung Lucia di Lammermoor at the Royal Opera House.
