This 1966 Met Turandot surpasses the more famous 1961 Stokowski broadcast, also with Nilsson and Corelli. As is well-known, the singers and chorus in 1961 had a great deal of trouble following Stokowski's batonless and vague cues. Both the legendary Turandot and Calaf, still unrivalled, offer surer and clearly better performances under Mehta, particularly Corelli, who here gives easily the best of his various available performances of his signature role, his constant artistic progress in the part in the 5 years since the '61 effort clearly evident here, while the voice, of course, is still in pristine form. Freni is ideal, barring some excessive "crying" after her Act One aria. This is THE Turandot to own. Why, oh why, did the Met choose the 1961 performance over this one for their own official release? Obviously because of Stokowski's great fame. Incidentally, this 1966 broadcast was the first ever Saturday matinee broadcast from the "new" Met at Lincoln Center, the 1st this writer, then age 19, ever heard, and on rehearing it often beginning 45 years later, I was better able to evaluate its excellence. Once heard, this will inevitably be the Turandot of choice, despite the audio superiority of Nilsson's 2 studio recordings, the 1st with Bjorling, the 2nd with Corelli. Buy it and find out what you've been missing when any other team has subsequently performed it. Incidentally, if you are dubious about the variable Mehta, don't be. Mehta excels here too, keeping his enormous forces under firm control without straight-jacketing his formidable leading duo.

I've read all the reviews here and have owned this '64 La Scala performance for years. Some of the reviewers seem surprised by the "inferior" sound quality. Clearly, they don't have much experience listening to off the air live performances of the '60's and earlier. No one goes to these priceless performances for sound quality, but for the special joys that live performance before an audience can offer, particularly with such artists as Corelli or conductor Hans Knappertsbusch, high among prominent examples of performers who just couldn't usually deliver their best under studio conditions. These were theatre creatures, their true stature revealed only there. Also, the cuts objected to by some reviewers were standard practice everywhere then; for sound quality or absolute completeness, such live performances can't be expected to match studio recordings.

That said, I still greatly prefer the '66 Met performance with the same star duo, with Freni and Mehta (see my review of that one) and the '61 Stokowski will be preferred by some. Many knowledgeable listeners considered this '64 version the best up to that time, but 2 years down the road, Nilsson and Corelli, particularly the tenor, surpassed themselves again. As for Sutherland and Pavarotti, despite some fine singing, they were far out of their respective elements when compared with the real thing for this opera, the Valkyrie and the Supertenor.

Generally, I yield to no one in my admiration for Bjorling, but Turandot was hardly the best opera to showcase the wonders of Bjorling's art, despite his beautiful singing in Calaf's 2 arias (but check out his 1944 recording of "Nessun dorma" for something really amazing). Turandot was never in his repertory and shouldn't have been.

My recommendation: get the studio recording of your choice and also the 3 Nilsson/Corelli live performances mentioned above and choose for yourself. I'm betting that the Met '66 version will be your favorite too.