because generally I do not enjoy this kind of music, and because of Sills’ comments about the opera in her autobiography. I won’t say I enjoyed it, but I appreciate the skill with which the singers execute the score and I did find some of the music interesting. I have no regrets for purchasing it, and am happy to have added this CD to my collection of Sills recordings.

I confess I bought this for Sills' contribution. She mentions the opera less than favorably in both of her autobiographies. The other singers are also very good. In fact, all the performing forces are great. Maderna was a specialist in modern scores and I think he's gets everything there is to get from Nono's wild, angry, defiant score. I've heard music like his before so I wasn't shocked. In fact, I think it all sounds like a film score, a film where graphic depictions of human devastation and intolerance could be shown. It's very effective as background music. Though I read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia I still have little idea of what was going on in the individual scenes. There is little attempt by the composer to engage the listener emotionally in the narrative or the characters (maybe that's the point).I have to hand it to Sills: her crystalline, high soprano is terrific as is Laurence White's protagonist. I'm not sure what parts the other singers play because I couldn't differentiate their characters. Though given in an English translation few of the words are comprehensible. In addition, we hear Italian, perhaps French, maybe one of the Asian languages. Sills writes in her first book about the difficulty of singing the line "The screaming voices of Hiroshima" the way Nono set it; I listened for it, but I couldn't make it out. Sills was right.The sound is fine for what this is. I doubt I'll listen to this again, but I'm glad I've heard it at least once.

Sills was the best of all the Opera the Opera was so strange to say the least

Excellent! Very well thank you

This is the sort of music I loved in my early '20s (as well as the "regular" stuff)! Now -in my mid-'60s- I find it rather too "in-your-face" and containing musical effects for the sake of being "different" and "shocking". However, I still think that the whole is too full of interesting music to be cast aside; it's certainly worth returning to now and then.Add in Laurence West's thrilling, committed performance and -of course- that of Beverly Sills and the rest of the cast, and you have an involved and involving experience.Christopher N. should not really complain (although he has every right to do so); the sound is not that bad for a telecast of 1965 and perfectly listenable. Let's also not forget that this is the only recording/performance which is complete...and the other two are in German, one of which has a rather poor protagonist. For the price, give it a try!

Of course, I meant Laurence WHITE as the protagonist!

Absolutely awful mp3 quality. I can't believe they charged money for this. If they didn't have this in lossless format to begin with, they had no business trying to sell it.

Just to make note, unlike the two commercial recordings of this opera, which omit Act II, Scene 1, this performance is complete !Sills, whether or not she liked the composer and his music, is astounding !

Luigi Nono was the son-in-law of Arnold Schoenberg, and his "Intolleranza" was premiered at the 24th International Festival for Contemporary Music at the Teatro La Fenice, in Venice, on April 13, 1961, conducted by Bruno Maderna. The première was a scandal, yet it is one of the most important works of the post-World War II period. Dedicated, indeed, to Schoenberg, the argument is a "flaming protest" against intolerance and oppression.Only four years later, the Boston Opera presented the twelve-tone "scenic action" in its American première, on February 21, 1965, in English translation. Maderna again conducted, Sarah Caldwell was the stage director, and Lawrence White (replacing John Moulson as the Migrant), Beverly Sills (as the Companion), Margaret Roggero (A Woman), Ercole (later Mario) Bertolino (An Algerian), and Guus Hoekman (A Tortured Man, sung at the world première by Italo Tajo) headed the cast.Due to various delays, the two scheduled performances ultimately occurred on the same day (!), as matinée and evening performances, at the Back Bay Theatre. National Education Television filmed both, and telecast a combination of the two on March 11, 1966. This recording published by Opera Depot is the soundtrack of that television film. Would that film of Caldwell's production (by many accounts, one of her most fascinating, with set designs by Josef Svoboda) emerge some day!The cast copes heroically with the fiercely difficult, magnificent score, with Miss Sills, in the most advanced opera the prima donna was to sing, astonishing in her hapless rôle. She famously declared her personal dislike of the composer, but admitted his dodecaphonic score was "intriguing." The fact that the very next year she was to triumph in the vastly different rôle of Cleopatra in Handel's "Giulio Cesare," at the New York City Opera, indicates the vast range of the soprano's talents.Congratulations are due to Opera Depot for publishing this thrilling recording of one of the most challenging works of the twentieth century, which can be considered a sequel to their magnificent recent publication of Dallapiccola's twelve-tone "Il prigioniero," with Norman Treigle conducted by Leopold Stokowski.