This is a wonderful performance, certainly without the digital fidelity, given the record date (1969), but for the same reason, with the warmth that many miss in the digital coldness. But the greater excellence of this version lies in the marvelous and powerful female voices: Helen Watts (Dame of the British Empire), the African-Amerincan Reri Grist (Bohm choice for Mozart and Strauss), and above all the huge canadian contralto Maureen Forrester. Simply marvelous, for those that love real music.

This production created for the opening of the Salzburg Festival in 1966, which remained on the programme for five years, was Karl Böhm's last Salzburg Figaro. After multiple tries to stage Figaro at the Salzburg Festival in the 1950's and 60's, the successful team Karl Böhm/Günther Rennert mounted this production with new décor, costumes by Rudolf Heinrich and with a practically new, young cast of singers. It was not only the celebrated highlight of the festival summer 1966 but also became a "standard for Mozart" " that at least was the headline the German critic and future director of the Stuttgart Opera, Wolfram Schwinger, gave his report in the "Stuttgarter Zeitung" of 27 July 1966.

Betrayal and forgiveness are the themes of this complex opera: Amelia's betrayal of her husband, Renato (she is having an affair with Riccardo. governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony), and the betrayal and assassination of Riccardo by a group of conspirators. The libretto is better integrated than most of Verdi's operas written before Otello and Falstaff. It was originally about an historic incident, the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden, but Roman censors, nervous about royal assassinations, forced the absurd relocation of the opera to colonial Boston. The music is prime middle-period Verdi, less spectacular than Il Trovatore, Rigoletto or La Forza del Destino, but it is warmly, richly expressive.

“One of Böhm's last operatic assignments, he accompanies his fine cast with huge wisdom. Gruberova and Talvela are outstanding. August Everding's production, adventurous for 1980, is now a delight to look at” (BBC Music Magazine). “the performance has a winning glow, with an excellent cast of soloists. Edita Gruberova as Konstanze is at her freshest…[Grist's Blonde] is a charming and characterful assumption, most of all when confronting the powerful Osmin of Martii Tavela” (Penguin Guide).