Time has not dimmed the memory..........
....of this absolutely fabulous performance. To say I was overjoyed to encounter this DVD would be an understatement...I saw this performance on a "Live from the Met" telecast back in 1982, and it has stuck with me.

Opera is in some ways the most unrealistic of art forms...here we have a bunch of Scots singing Italian. Two not terribly attractive middle-age people pledge their young love to each other in some of the most beautiful music ever written. Both lead characters keep singing after they're dead [that happens often in Opera]. Who cares? We come to the Opera to be blown away, and we are. If you want pretty girls, try pop. If you want stories that make sense, go elsewhere.

This performance absolutely COOKED!!! Dame Joan was 56, and Lucia was her signatue. If she had been a little better 20 years earlier, it wasn't by much. The late Alfredo Kraus was the lyric tenor of the ages; Edgar was perfect for him. He cared for his voice superbly, and picked his roles with care. The late Pablo Elvira is a wonderful Enrico, the villain brother who wants to marry off Lucia for money. Paul Plishka and Ariel Bybee were in perfect voice, and Richard Bonynge conducted with a sure hand. The audience went berserk, and well they should have.

I heard several of these fine singers in person over the years [and will always treasure the program Alfredo Kraus signed for me at Carnegie Hall in 1984; he was a gentleman]. They never sounded better than they did the night this was taped. If Opera is your cup of tea, don't miss this!!!

La Stupenda Is Just That
I shared this video with three friends and we all agreed it was a marvelous experience. Miss Sutherland, because of advancing years, is not in the same vocal form as she was when she was younger. That's life. But, even so,her singing here is amazing. She brought the house down after singing The Mad Scene, and rightly so.Pablo Elvira is an excellent Enrico, as is Paul Plishka singing Raimondo. My carping is directed at Alfredo Kraus singing Edgardo.This is purely subjective and there probably will be many who will disagree, but I always found Mr. Kraus lacking innate fire and also chemistry with his leading ladies. His singing voice is good; it's his uninteresting stage presence that prevents me from giving this video 5 stars. If you're looking for a great Lucia, look no further.

Fascinated by the broad spectrum of reviews....
I'm watching (listening) once again after some years as I write this little note. Out of curiosity I read what the other thirty-five of you had to say. All the opinions count because they are expressed by people who are either educated to opera or have great affection for it. Having said that, I was embarrassed for the principles - and was that taken with Pablo Elvira who has done little in the way of recordings, more's the pity. Plishka was, well, Plishka. In case some of you haven't noticed, the Met has rather shabby performances with singers who don't fit and some who shouldn't be singing in what used to be a world class house. Clearly, that was going on in 1982 and little has improved. (Ask me about Meistersinger on 3/19/07.)

Oh-yes! I'm not brand new, and long for those days of yesteryear when an opera singer considered the lyric stage either a convent or a monestery, so to speak. Dame Joan most certainly lead a circumspect life with her Dickie and God bless them both. Somehow, even the greats too often just don't know when to quit. I've never understood that sort of mania but, then, I never had to.

I believe that those of you who adored this performance and its stars did so out of appreciation and reverence, just as I often do with Callas who had some outstanding flaws - that wobble alone probably drives some listeners to turn her off.

a classic performance
The sextet in this opera performance is well worth the price of admission. No words describe it

Bel canto diva shines
Perhaps this is not the definitive production of Lucia di Lammermoor, nor is it Sutherland's most sensational performance of the role. But it merits 5 stars simply because it is Sutherland in her signature part, an amazingly rare document considering the astonishing length of her career (she was 56 at the time of this performance), the number of times she performed Lucia, and her position as the foremost bel canto artist of the 20th century.

There were many fine, even great interpreters of this role in the last century prior to Sutherland, despite the remarks of another reviewer. Among them were Tetrazzini, Galli-Curci, Melba and, or course, Pons. Contemporaries included Callas, Sills, Peters, Mesple and, for a very short while, Scotto. In spite of these singers many individual qualities, it is well known that the role belongs to Sutherland.

Opinions are fine, but comparing Devia to Sutherland is quite a stretch, and is a representative example of the deterioriating knowledge about vocal artistry in today's opera going public, which week after week cheer pedestrian-to-outright bad performances on the stage of the Met (one reviewer would have shown greater sensitivity acknowledging the work of Gruberova over Devia). As to comments that Sutherland's voice seems strained at times, there is no question that it does not have some of the qualities it once did. But that would not be the point. The miracle is the way in which she manages this performance, a notoriously difficult one, and succeeds, to the reviewers' own observation, to rise to the occasion at exactly the right moments.

For those who were not fortunate enough to hear Sutherland in a live performance, this recording, as with her others--studio or otherwise--will in no way inform the ear about the incomparable amplitude, virtuosity and sheer beauty of this remarkable instrument. And if one wants to hear what real strain and pinched, uneven singing sounds like, sample some of the work of successors June Anderson, Ruth Ann Swenson and others.

I would also suggest Sutherland's 1986 performance of Lucia from Sydney, on DVD/VHS. Her voice is remarkably fresh, the instrument pliant, and her endurance, well, stupendous. Both studio recordings, made 20 years apart, are also exceptional, showing the amazing growth of an already unsurpassed voice. If you can find her performance of the Mad Scene from the 1984 Concert for Peace in Sydney, get it. As for pirates, they are out there. Of this group, I would recommend the 1970 Lucia from the Met with Domingo.