Tebaldi New York Farewell Recital 1976

The sold-out crowd that assembled in Carnegie Hall on the evening of February 19, 1976 may not known that they would be hearing the legendary soprano Renata Tebaldi's final American performance. The audience had already been turned away a month earlier, when they had gathered at the same place to find out, after only one song, that a cold prohibited Tebaldi from continuing. Many did not think she would reschedule what was already a rare event. When she did reschedule, and when she sang with the lustrous beauty for which she is famous and, what is more, sing a program that would have exhausted singers half her age, the response was riotous. The audience's frenzy is at its peak with Tebaldi's definitive renditions of arias from Puccini's 'La Boheme.' But this is a song recital, and many songs she sings, with idiomatic grace and intimacy. This recording stands not only on its manifold musical merits, but also on its status as a historic document.