Jonathan Knapp wrote:

>As we approach the holiday season, when most of us spend our hard
>earned cash on cds, and the end of the millenium, I thought it might be
>nice to reflect back on the opera recordings of the century and select
>some definitive recordings. ...

Here is my list:

Puccini: Tosca with Callas/Di Stefano/Gobbi/De Sabata
Verdi: La Forza del Destino with Tebaldi/Del Monaco/Mitropoulos (live
recording in Florence)
Verdi: La Traviata with Scotto/Kraus/Muti
Verdi: La Traviata with Callas/Giulini (if you will be able to forget the
technical defaults of the recording in third act)
Verdi: Macbeth with Callas/De Sabata
Verdi: Falstaff with Stabile/Tebaldi/De Sabata (recorded live at La Scala
in 1951)
Berlioz: Les Troyens with Vickers/Sir Colin Davis
Mozart: Cosi` fan tutte with with Schwarzkopf/Merriman/Cantelli
Mozart: Don Giovanni with Pinza/Kipnis/Bruno Walter (recorded in 1942)
Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro with Siepi/Guden/Della Casa/Erich Kleiber

As far as Wagner is oncerned I will mention:
Des Ring der Nibelungen: both the recording by Furtwangler live from "La
Scala"(1950) and with the Orchestra of the Italian radio RAI.
Tristan und Isolde: with Kollo/Price/Carlos Kleiber

Franco Destefanis <[log in to unmask]>