You could hardly imagine a more starrily cast account of Suor Angelica than this, with even the small roles taken by singers of the calibre of Elizabeth Connell, Marie McLaughlin, Anne Collins and Della Jones, a very characterful team. It is marvellous, too, having Christa Ludwig in glorious voice as La Zia Principessa, commanding rather than just menacing. As I said in my original review (12/79), it is a pity that Sutherland did not record this earlier, for by 1978 a beat had developed in the voice, making her sound rather too mature for Puccini’s tormented heroine. Yet Angelica is far from being a wilting victim figure, and what strikes me the more, hearing this most neglected of Sutherland opera recordings again, is how powerfully involving the climactic resolution is from the aria, “Senza mamma” to the end, not outshone by any other version.
As Sutherland explains in her autobiography (A Prima Donna’s Progress; Weidenfeld and Nicolson: 1997), she had sung the role on stage in Sydney the previous year, also with Richard Bonynge conducting, and that clearly helped to heighten the impact of the recording. After “Senza mamma” – with a firm, long-sustained top A at the end – tension is heightened still further up to the moment of suicide, with Sutherland’s clean-cut top B leading to an emotional thunderclap from the orchestra, superbly timed by Bonynge (track 12, 4'28''). The vision of the Virgin Mary too, which can seem cloying, brings a genuine Puccinian gulp, hitting hard, confirming that, far from being uncontrolledly sweet, this is as carefully structured a piece as any Puccini opera.
The recording could hardly be more vivid, with the many off-stage effects tangibly atmospheric. The fill-up is welcome too, a one-off recording of Tosca’s “Vissi d’arte”, recorded in 1972, but not issued until 1977 in a three-LP compilation set, “The Voice of the Century”.'