A great cast and an outstanding conductor! Highly recommended! A must!

I’ve heard Dame Gwyneth as Medea and Leonora in Fidelio, but I wasn’t aware that she had sung any Mozart. I find her very exciting in this role, and not at all out of place. How I would love to hear her as Elettra and Vitelia! The rest of the cast is also very good, especially Stuart Burrows. The sound is fine for a live performance from 1973.

Everyone sings and acts most persuasively in this performance. The three women have strong voices and personalities and never sound like one another. Though I shouldn't have been surprised, Jones is a great Anna. Her voice is under control and she zips through the coloratura passages with alacrity. Fine is an excellent Elvira whose performance would only have been enhanced by the inclusion of "Mi tradi". For reasons known only to him, Davis cuts it. I can't imagine it was because Fine couldn't sing it: she certainly sings the rest of the role very well. As she was in so many other roles, Cahill is exquisite.The men are equally fine. Glossop shows us the debonair, suave side of the eponymous hero, but also the cruder, lascivious side as well. He gets off a great top A in the Supper scene. Evans is a marvelous Leporello, Burrows the epitome of Mozartian grace as Ottavio (he takes the big run in "Il mio tesoro" all in one breath), and young Robert Lloyd and Gwynne Howell live up to their developing reputations as Masetto and the Commandatore respectively. The orchestra and chorus perform very well for Davis who conducts a fleet, dramatic performance. Appoggiaturas and mini-cadenzas abound in this performance (Jones even adds a couple of quick trills in "Non mi dir").The sound is excellent, a few minor glitches from the original tape notwithstanding. The first chord of the overture is faded up, but that shouldn't deter you from getting this recording.

This was indeed the famous "Welsh" Don Giovanni at Covent Garden and there is a much to enjoy in it. Stuart Burrows's glorious, elegant Don Ottavio, Gwynne Howell's sonorous Commendatore, and Geraint Evans's bitter, downtrodden Leporello - a role he had honed over many years. Gwyneth Jones's Donna Anna is a revelation; reining in her huge instrument, her plangent tones lend a memorable quality of shocked grief to everything she sings. You are always aware that this is a daughter who has just lost her father - the only man in the world for whom she truly cares. It is very moving and the work of a great singing actress. The down sides of this compelling recording come with the non-Welsh singers. Wendy Fine's Elvira tends towards the shrill, and Peter Glossop shouts his way through much of the title role, often struggling painfully with his Italian diction. He is the set's problem. Its glory however is the conducting of Colin Davis, who paces the performance with a combination of warmth and zesty fire that is quite irresistible. Everything flows naturally and climaxes are never forced. Davis strikes the perfect balance between accompaniment and driving energy. It's masterful and hugely pleasurable.

great conducting

I think to be correct you’d have to say greatest Welsh singers of its day This is the famed ‘Welsh Don Giovanni” that Covent Garden staged in 1973, with fully half the cast of Welsh origin: Evans, Jones, Burrows, Howell, were all born in Wales, and although Lloyd is English, with that name he must have some Welsh in his past somewhere.