A1 	Sweethearts (From "Sweethearts") 	2:17
A2 	A Kiss In The Dark (From "Orange Blossoms") 	2:44
A3 	Lover, Come Back To Me (From "The New Moon") 	4:10
A4 	You Are Love (From "Show Boat") 	3:26
A5 	Indian Love Call (From "Rose Marie") 	4:30
A6 	Ah! Sweet Mystery Of Life (From "Naughty Marietta") 	3:16
B1 	Yours Is My Heart Alone (From "The Land Of Smiles") 	3:48
B2 	I'll See You Again (From Bitter Sweet") 	2:40
B3 	My Hero (From "The Chocolate Soldier") 	2:28
B4 	One Alone (From "The Desert Song") 	3:03
B5 	Someday (From "The Vagabond King") 	3:08
B6 	Will You Remember (Sweetheart) (From "Maytime") 	3:24

Anna Moffo - Soprano
Sergio franchi - Tenor
Henri René - Arranger, Conductor

Moffo was also invited to sing at the San Francisco Opera where she made her debut as Amina on October 1, 1960. During that period she also made several appearances on American television, while enjoying a successful international career singing at most major opera houses around the world (Stockholm, Berlin, Monte Carlo, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, etc.). At the Metropolitan Opera in March 1961 with Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli she performed in Turandot as Liù, conducted by Leopold Stokowski. She made her debut at the Royal Opera House in London, as Gilda, in a Franco Zeffirelli production of Rigoletto. Shortly after the Italian tenor Sergio Franchi joined RCA Victor, they recorded a popular album of operetta duets, The Dream Duet, which peaked at number ninety seven on the Billboard 200 in 1963. Later that year Franchi and Moffo collaborated in recording The Great Moments From Die Fledermaus with The Vienna State Orchestra and Chorus, Oskar Dannon conducting. In 1999 this album was re-mastered and re-issued in High Performance Stereo. ---operamusica.com

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01 - Faust-Air Des Bijoux
02 - La Boheme-Mi Chiamano Mimi
03 - Dinorah-Ombre Legere
04 - Carmen-Je Dis Que Rien Ne M'Epouvante
05 - Semiramide-Bel Raggio Lusinghier
06 - Turadot-Signore, Ascolta
07 - Turadot-Tu Che Di Gel Sei Cinta
08 - Lakme-Air Des Clochettes

Rome Opera Orchestra
Tullio Serafin – conductor

Anna Moffo’s recording career had an auspicious start in 1955 when she was engaged by Karajan to sing Nanetta in his by now legendary Falstaff. Here in her first solo album she had added a little more body to her lovely voice and had had some more stage experience. She had made her Metropolitan debut less than a year earlier and was rapidly becoming a star. Hers was also one of the most beautiful soprano voices around during the late 1950s and most of the 1960s. By the beginning of the 1970s it had started to deteriorate, even though she continued to appear on stage. She left a fairly large recorded legacy, including an excellent Luisa Miller with Bergonzi and MacNeil, a Rigoletto under Solti with Alfredo Kraus and Robert Merrill (to be reviewed shortly) and a splendid Verdi recital, all of them from the mid-1960s. I do hope that the recital will be reissued soon, since it is to my mind one of the best collections of Verdi arias ever recorded.

The present disc was an original three-track stereo recording and played through SACD equipment delivers stunning realism without unnecessary highlighting. Just listen to the triangle, so distinctly caught on the first track, and the full orchestra sounds magnificent, e.g. in the Semiramide aria. Tullio Serafin, past eighty at the time, knew all the tricks and he kept things moving. One could object that some of the French excerpts sound more Italian than French, but why complain when everything is done with the utmost conviction? Just sit back and enjoy the sound of Moffo’s creamy voice. Listen to her exquisite pianissimo singing in the Bohème aria; the wonderful scaling down at the end. Admire her elegant coloratura singing in the Meyerbeer aria and discover what a lovely Micaela she is in the Carmen excerpt. In the 1970s she went on to sing the title role in that opera, she even recorded it with Corelli for Eurodisc, but hers was not really a Carmen voice. Best of all are possibly Liù’s two arias from Turandot, a role she sang at the Met opposite Corelli and Birgit Nilsson.

Indeed everything is tasteful and technically secure. She never indulges in unnecessary distortions of the musical line to express deeper feelings. As a matter of fact that is what some commentators have found most obviously missing in her interpretations: identification with the different characters. On stage her beautiful appearance and good acting could compensate for that, on recordings of complete operas she sometimes overdid the voice acting. Her La traviata, recorded about the same time as this recital, is so filled with sobs and sighs that one has to seek shelter. None of this here, though, and as with some other much loved singers, the beauty of the voice is enough reason to get this disc. Playing time is short, but LPs were normally this length 45 years ago. There are no texts, but the original notes by Francis Robinson, assistant manager of the Metropolitan Opera, are retained with some added information on Ms Moffo’s career. Also there are some technical notes and the booklet reproduces the original LP cover.

So: glorious singing of beautiful arias in stunning sound that could have been recorded yesterday. Richard Mohr and Lewis Layton knew what they were doing and I suppose the remastering team also deserve a rosette for the finished result. Recommended? Yes! ---Göran Forsling, musicweb-international.com

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1) I vespri siciliani: Merce, dilette amiche 
2) Ernani: Ernani, involami 
3) Il trovatore: D'amor sull'ali rosse
4) Aida: O patria
5) Giovanna d'Arco: O ben s'addice questo torbido cielo
6) Otello: Willow Song and Ave Maria
7) Un ballo in maschera: Morro, ma prima in grazia
8) Simon Boccanegra: Come in quest'ora bruna

Orquestra de la RCA
Franco Ferrara - conductor

Anna Moffo was born on June 27, 1932, in Wayne, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Nicolas Moffo and his Regina (Cinti) Moffo. She made her public debut at the age of 7 before a school assembly in a rendition of "Mighty Lak' a Rose." Later on she performed at school recitals, weddings, funerals, and in choirs. After graduating from high school, Anna Moffo was offered the chance to appear in Hollywood films, but turned it down because of her intentions to become a nun.

After deciding to devote herself to music, Miss Moffo won a four-year scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia after performing the one operatic selection she knew: Un Bel Dí from Puccini's Madama Butterfly. She studied voice and piano at the institute and graduated with honors. Soon after, in 1955, she won the Young Artists Auditions and a Fulbright grant to study at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Some little-known facts about Anna Moffo are that while studying in Italy, she worked as an X-ray technician and also learned to type ninety-seven words a minute.

Anna Moffo made her stage debut in 1955 as Norina in Donizetti's Don Pasquale in Spoleto, Italy. The following year, she appeared in a television production of Madama Butterfly, staged by Mario Lanfranchi, whom she married on December 8, 1957. In 1957, she made her La Scala debut in Falstaff and her American debut as Mimi in Puccini's La Bohčme at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Anna Moffo made her Metropolitan Opera debut on November 14, 1959, as Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata. She returned to the Met in the 1960-61 season to sing three new roles, Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto, Adina in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, and Liů in Turandot with Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli. Around this time, Miss Moffo became especially popular in Italy. Not only was she voted one of the ten most beautiful women in Italy, she also hosted "The Anna Moffo Show" from 1960 to 1973.

Miss Moffo divorced Lanfranchi in 1972 and married former RCA chairman Robert Sarnoff in 1974 (unfortunately, Sarnoff died of cancer in February 1997). In the late-seventies, Miss Moffo began singing, along with her signature roles (La Traviata and Lucia di Lammermoor), the heavier Verdi roles, such as Leonora in Il Trovatore and Lina in Stiffelio. Recently, in 1991, she added a new role to her repertoire, that of the title role in Bellini's Norma.

Fortunately for her fans, Anna Moffo has recorded several albums (opera and otherwise), including La Traviata, La Bohčme (with Maria Callas), La Rondine, and Madama Butterfly. She has also enjoyed successful film career, not only of operas, but also of strictly dramatic films, including Una storia d'amore, which won the prestigious Griffo d'Argento award. She is as well known for her beauty as for her singing, but it shouldn't be overlooked that she has performed La Traviata more than 900 times, and Lucia di Lammermoor around 500 times. ---

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01. Donizetti Linda Di Chamounix Act 1
02. Verdi I Lombardi Act IV
03. Puccini Tosca Act II        play
04. Leoncavallo Pagliacci Act II
05. Puccini Suor Angelica - Senza Mamma
06. Rossini Semiramide Act I
07. Puccini Turandot Act I,     play
08. Puccini Turandot Act III
09. Donizetti Lucia Di Lammermoor Act I

Soprano Anna Moffo was one of the best-loved performers at New York's Metropolitan Opera in the 1960s. In the words of Elizabeth Forbes of London's Independent newspaper, Moffo "was the perfect interpreter of those innumerable operatic heroines who are dying of consumption [tuberculosis] or some other disease, or just from unrequited love." She had both the warm, lyrical voice and the good looks to handle roles like that of the doomed high-class prostitute Violetta in Giuseppe Verdi's 'La traviata', a part she performed some 900 times. Trained partly in Italy, she was also popular in that country, and her cadre of hardcore opera-loving admirers remains an unusually devoted one.

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01 – Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice – Highlights: Qual vita è questa mai
02 – Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice – Highlights: Che fiero momento!
03 – Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice – Highlights: Avvezza al contento
04 – Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice – Highlights: Che fiero momento!
05 – Pergolesi: La serva padrona: Stizzoso, mio stizzoso
06 – Pergolesi: La serva padrona: A Serpina penserete
07 – Donizetti: Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor – Highlights: Act I: Scene 2: Ancor non giunse!
08 – Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor – Highlights: Act I: Scene 2: Regnava nel silenzio
09 – Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor – Highlights: Act I: Scene 2: Quando, rapito in estasi
10 – Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor – Highlights: Act III: Scene 2: Eccola! – Il dolce suono
11 – Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor – Highlights: Act III: Scene 2: Ohimè! Sorge il tremendo fantasma
12 – Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor – Highlights: Act III: Scene 2: Ardon gl’incensi
13 – Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor – Highlights: Act III: Scene 2: S’avanza Enrico!
14 – Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor – Highlights: Act III: Scene 2: Spargi d’amaro pianto
15 – Verdi: Luisa Miller: Act I: Scene 1: Lo vidi, e’l primo palpito
16 – Verdi: Rigoletto: Act I: Gualtier Maldé, Caro nome
17 – Verdi: La Traviata – Highlights: Act I: E strano, è strano!; Ah, fors è lui
18 – Verdi: La Traviata – Highlights: Act I: Follie! Follie! Delirio vano
19 – Verdi: La Traviata – Highlights: Act I: Sempre libera
20 – Verdi: La Traviata – Highlights: Act III: Teneste la promessa
21 – Verdi: La Traviata – Highlights: Act III: Addio del passato
22 – Puccini: La Bohème: Si. Mi chiamano Mimi
23 – Puccini:La Rondine: Chi il bel sogno di Doretta

One of the brightest stars in the 20th-century operatic firmament, the Pennsylvania-born soprano Anna Moffo (1932–2006) enjoyed a meteoric rise in the 1950s and 1960s that saw her conquer all the major opera houses in Europe and America. After making her Metropolitan Opera début in 1959 as Violetta in La traviata, she went on to appear with the company in 200 performances of 21 roles over a total of 18 seasons, before finally singing her last complete performance – once again as Verdi’s Violetta – and retiring from the stage in 1976. Specially released to mark the 10th anniversary of Anna Moffo’s death (with booklet notes by Jürgen Kesting and full discographical details), Sony Classical’s new limited edition 12-CD original jackets collection finally brings together the 10 recital albums that Moffo recorded for RCA between 1960 and 1974, four of them making their first appearance on CD, newly mastered from the original analogue tapes using 24bit/96kHz technology.

Mostly dating from Moffo’s youthful heyday in the early 1960s, these treasurable reissues include new remasterings of such jewels from her discography as her ravishing recording of Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne (coupled with equally sensuous versions of Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas brasileiras No. 5 and Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise) under the direction of the legendary Leopold Stokowski and the fascinating double-album A Portrait of Manon, in which Moffo portrays the Abbé Prévost’s seductively immoral heroine in contrasting scenes from Massenet’s and Puccini’s rival settings of the story.

Partnered there by the great Italian operatic tenors Giuseppe Di Stefano and Flaviano Labò, Moffo is also featured in two famous collaborations with the 1960s heart-throb tenor (later turned Las Vegas cabaret star) Sergio Franchi: The Dream Duet, an enticing selection of Broadway and operetta hits by Jerome Kern, Victor Herbert, Sigmund Romberg and others; and a starrily cast sequence of “great moments” from Johann Strauss’s flirtatious Viennese comedy Die Fledermaus, sung in a delightfully period English translation.

Rounding off the collection are two compilation discs: an original 1973 album of Great Love Duets from Opera, featuring Moffo in tandem with such famous tenors as Richard Tucker, Carlo Bergonzi and Alfredo Kraus, and now newly extended to include five extra tracks by Verdi and Puccini; and a brand-new compilation of arias from Moffo’s various complete RCA opera recordings, showcasing her in some of her most impressive roles: as Eurydice in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, as Serpina in Pergolesi’s La serva padrona, as an almost Callas-like heroine in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, as a notably warm-toned Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto and, of course, as Violetta in La traviata, the signature role with which she had taken her leave of the stage in 1976. ---prestoclassical.co.uk

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1. Merry Widow - Vilja
2. Merry Widow - The Love of Long Ago (with William Lewis)
3. Die Fledermaus - O, for the life of an actress
4. Die Fledermaus - Laughing Song
5. Night in Venice - Baskets of Treasure
6. Night in Venice - Wishing on a Waltz
7. Desert Song - Romance
8. Desert Song - Sabre Song
9. Rose-Marie - Indian Love Call (with Richard Fredricks)
10. Roberta - Smoke gets in Your Eyes
11. Roberta - Let's Begin (with Stanley Grover)
12. Showboat - Bill
13. Naughty Marietta - Italian Street Song
14. Porgy and Bess – Summertime

American lyric-dramatic soprano Anna Moffo rose quickly to become one of the world's best-known opera singers in the 1950s and remained a leading star into the 1970s. Her parents were Nicolas Moffo and Regina (Cinti) Moffo. Anna made her singing debut at the age of seven in a school assembly with Mighty Lak' a Rose. She sang frequently in her town and surrounding regions. Possessing notable beauty to go along with her voice, she was offered a chance to audition for Hollywood. She elected music instead, winning a four-year scholarship to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her teacher there was Eugenia Giannini-Gregory.

She won the Young Artists Auditions in 1955. A Fulbright Scholarship the same year enabled her to travel to Italy and study at the Accademica di Santa Cecilia in Rome with Luigi Ricci and Mercedes Llopart. To help support herself she worked as an X-ray technician and typist. She debuted on stage as Norina in Don Pasquale (Donizetti) at Spoleto. Her warm, lyric voice and full tone attracted much attention, while her slim, attractive figure and beautiful stage appearance suited her to visual media. She was engaged to sing the title role of Butterfly by television director Mario Lanfranchi. This 1956 broadcast made her an instant star in Italy, and gained her international fame. She sang other Italian television opera productions, including Lucia di Lammermoor and La fille du régiment. She made her French debut in 1956, singing Zerlina (Mozart's Don Giovanni) at Aix-en-Provence. She appeared throughout Italy, and debuted at Teatro alla Scala in Falstaff in 1957. She first appeared in America as Mimì in La bohème at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In the same year she married Lanfranchi.

On November 14, 1959, she first sang at the Metropolitan Opera in what was to be one of her most important roles, Violetta in Verdi's La traviata. In 1960 she began to host a program about opera on Italian television, The Anna Moffo Show, which continued until 1973. She was voted one of the 10 most beautiful women in Italy. In the 1960-1961 season she sang three roles at the Met: Gild in Rigoletto, Adina in L'Elisir d'Amore, and Liù in Turandot, with Franco Corelli and Birgit Nilsson. She was a major vocal recording artist on the RCA Victor label.

Some of her other important roles were Pamina (The Magic Flute), Luisa Miller, Debussy's Mélisande, a sparkling rendition as the heroine in Offenbach's operetta La Périchole, and all four leading female parts in the same composer's Les contes d'Hoffmann. She sang at the major European opera houses, and was most associated over he career with the parts of Violetta (which she sang over 900 times) and Lucia di Lammermoor (500 performances). She appeared in filmed and videotaped operas, but also in non-operatic dramatic films, including the prize-winning Una storia d'amore.

In 1972 she and Lanfranchi were divorced and she married Robert Sarnoff, the chairman of RCA. By 1974 she had sung 220 performances in 18 operas at the Met. She had allowed herself to be pushed into making too many commitments and in that year she suffered a severe vocal collapse, which kept her off the stage for two years. When she returned, she focused more on lyrical parts, but soon was able to expand to the more dramatic roles by Verdi (Leonora in Il trovatore, for instance) and in 1991 added Bellini's Norma. In 1999, the Met honored her with a gala celebrating the 40th anniversary of her debut. --- Joseph Stevenson, Rovi

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