This is the first version of Lucia to appear on CD, and very welcome it is. Those who have the LPs will know how excellent the recording is on that medium; in this case, therefore, the improvement and immediacy on the CD is marginal, except for the constant factor of the absence of clicks and splutters. You will recall that Bonynge's is a genuinely complete edition of the score with every number in its original key—particularly significant in ''Se tradirmi'', which sounds particularly thrilling a semitone above the pitch in which it is usually given.
Sutherland's return to the title role last season at Covent Garden was an almost unqualified triumph, showing that she could still encompass it as successfully as on this set. Those who saw her then for the first time, and have CD, will surely want this reminder of the soprano in probably her best role. It is more interesting as an interpretation than her earlier Decca 1961 recording on LP only, verbally more precise in many ways and almost as freshly voiced. Pavarotti sings with predictable elan as Edgardo, and with great feeling in the last act. Ghiaurov makes a sonorous Raimondo. Bonynge conducts with buoyancy but not always the feeling for line of Serafin for Callas. One of her versions is promised from EMI on CD sometime next year and it is still to Callas that one would turn for the ultimate in projecting Lucia's sorrow—but both her sets made the bad old theatre cuts. So for the whole thing, not to forget a really spacious recording, the Decca is an essential.'