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Any collector seriously interested in the art of song should have at least one Joan Sutherland recording, and for many fans this may be the one. Between March 17, 1961 and March 22, 1968, she appeared on nine Bell Telephone Hour telecasts and performed in a total of 14 numbers, beginning with the mad scene from Thomas's Hamlet and ending with an all-star interpretation of the Sextet from Lucia di Lammermoor. The performances date from Sutherland's prime years; the material was selected to show her at her best, carefully staged and sensitively filmed. For the ensemble numbers (the Quartet from Rigoletto, the Sextet from Lucia, and the climax of Act II of Tosca), she was given ideal performing partners (notably Tito Gobbi and Nicolai Gedda), but the most spectacular number is a solo, a mad scene from Lucia, telecast in 1962 and lasting nearly a quarter-hour. All except the first two numbers are filmed in color. --Joe McLellan
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