Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Le Coq D'or (or the Golden Chicken as a friend of mine calls it) is classic Rimsky-Korsakov. The orchestral writing is colorful, the vocal lines chromatic and complex, the libretto filled with that wicked, if rather heavy, sense of humor specific to the Russians. The Met hasn't performed it since the 1940's. NYCO revived it for Treigle and Sills in the early 70's. Since then performances in this country have been very scarce. This 1961 RAI performance is very well sung. Christoff lacks only the fuddy-duddy quality of the King; without it we feel too sorry for him and we shouldn't. D'Angelo has all the high notes (including a high E towards the end of the second act) and she manages the slithery chromatic coloratura very well. Frascati, a well-known comprimario, handles the Astrologer's extreme high notes just as well as D'Angelo and imparts a sense of occasion to the proceedings. All the other singers are excellent too. Massimo Freccia conducts capably although I think there is more in the score than he finds.An Italian translation is used. One misses some of exoticism when it's not sung in Russian, but most people can follow an opera in Italian better than they can in Russian. The sound is excellent, a few minor glitches aside.