1958 Met Broadcast of MADAMA BUTTERFLY

Antonietta Stella is Cio-Cio-San in a 1958 radio broadcast from The Met of Puccini’s MADAMA BUTTERFLY.

Listen here.

CAST:

Cio-Cio-San – Antonietta Stella; Pinkerton – Eugenio Fernandi; Suzuki – Margaret Roggero; Sharpless – Clifford Harvuot; Goro – Alessio De Paolis; Bonze – Ezio Flagello; Yamadori – George Cehanovsky; Kate Pinkerton – Madelaine Chambers; Commissioner – Calvin Marsh

The conductor is Dimitri Mitropoulos

Although I didn’t get to the Old Met until 1963, when Stella and Fernandi were no longer singing there, I saw most of the other singers in this BUTTERFLY cast numerous times in the ensuing years. Ezio Flagello was a perfect Leporello in my first-ever Met performance, and Calvin Marsh was Leporello that same night.