Puccini - La Bohème - Caballé, Domingo, Milnes, Raimondi - Solti 19742CD RCA 2005
Placido Domingo, Montserrat Caballé, Sherrill Milnes, Judith Blegen, Ruggero Raimondi
London Philharmonic Orchestra with Solti
Caballe is in resplendent voice here,this is early Caballe.Her floated high D at the end of the famous duet,has to be heard to be believed.The sound quality is still not perfect,even with this new remaster,which is a shame.The original studio engineers should have been shot.Even so it still sounds good on a nice stereo.Caballe is the reason to own this paticular la boheme,although domingo has his good moments.This should have been the best la boheme ever,but solti messed this one up a bit.He was not in a good mood in the studio when they recorded this.The music sounds like it is missing something,some passion,and especially atmosphere,it sounds a little to cold and metallic in places.It is clearly not the singers fault,but that of solti and the engineers!I still love to listen to this recording,because of Caballe's ethereal and touching mimi. This is still overall one of the best studio recordings of la boheme. --Amazon customer
