Rosmonda d'Inghilterra

These two clips surfaced recently on YouTube. I didn't put them there: a user by the name of asdfopera did. But I thought I'd take the tiny liberty of embedding them here, since it occurs to me that they may well be of interest to more people than would find them on YouTube. 

Any Australian who's read a newspaper profile or two of Yvonne Kenny knows how her big break happened. In 1975, at extraordinarily short notice, she stepped in for an ailing Janet Price in the title of Donizetti's Rosmonda d'Inghilterra, in a concert performance staged by Opera Rara in London. Audience, critics and impresarios went incidentally mad and a star was born.

What you mightn't know is that the opera was given again in a concert in Dublin Belfast just a few months later, with mostly (possibly all?) the same cast, including the newly acclaimed leading lady. It was recorded, but as far as I can tell, the records were available only to some sort of Opera Rara club, and never made commercially available. I picked up a set on eBay several years ago. I believe Celestial Audio is now selling a CD transfer of the same recording. And the aforementioned asdfopera has now paired a couple of excerpts from that recording with appropriate paintings and posted them for the world to enjoy.

So in an effort to spread that enjoyment, here are the two clips. This is the youngest you're likely to hear Australia's Favourite Soprano^TM. The only earlier recording I've heard is a very scratchy one of the Xerxes she did in 1972 (also at the last moment), the one which made her decide to be an opera singer rather than a biochemist, and I'd imagine it's even harder to come by than Rosmonda. Enjoy.

[Double-clicking on either video will of course take you to its individual YouTube page, wherein lie further details of the recording.]