An excellent performance. Mostly a cast I have never heard of, but excellent singing. Recording quality very good for a live 1977 production. The only recording I know of sung in English. Highly recommended.

I've been bought Operas in English and I love live performance; this was a SHOCKING surprise; the sound and English was perfect. If you love Strauss's Elektra, this is worth getting.

Other writers have already left positive reviews of this exciting performance. I heartily agree with all of them. Tinsley is magnificent. How and why she didn't become better known is a topic best left to another venue, but she certainly lives up to her reputation as a thrilling singing actress here. Evans is a lovely Chrysothemis and White is a memorable Orest. Debria Brown was an African American mezzo who created Tituba in Robert Ward's opera of The Crucible. She had a successful career both in Europe and the US. She makes Klytemnestra into a real queen with a full, rich contralto that she uses with imagination. I'm pretty sure she performs her own offstage screams too (it certainly sounds like her). The supporting cast includes Rita Cullis as the Fifth Maid and a young Suzanne Murphy as the Overseer. Armstrong leads a strong, less hectic performance than I've heard in awhile. He also plays the entire second Chrysothemis/Elektra scene, usually trimmed. The English translation is accurate and singable. I would probably make out more of it had I listened to this performance on headphones (I didn't). The sound is excellent broadcast stereo. All Elektra fans or admirers of the singers should have this.

I only saw Pauline Tinsley once, as Kostelnicka in a 1979 Houston Grand Opera performance of Jenufa, and I am still obsessed with that performance, despite the intervening 40+ years. I was never so immediately transported into the drama of a opera by the combined vocal and acting talents of an opera performer as I was by Ms. Tinsley that night. So, I had high hopes for this recording of Elektra, given the effusively positive reviews by others here. I was not disappointed. Tinsley mesmerizes you with every phrase. The standard by which I judge an Elektra is Inge Borkh's masterful excerpt recording with Fritz Reiner and the CSO. Tinsley is every bit her equal, and I might add that the conducting is every bit as intense as Reiner's. The other roles are performed well, but this night belonged to Ms. Tinsley.

I don't often go into raptures over sublime performances........I had the privilege of hearing this live on tourshortly after this first night and was simply blown away. I still rate it amongst the top ten performances of opera I have ever heard. Tinsley danced around the base of a giant headless statue of Agamemnon swinging on ropes hanging from the statue a physical and a vocal tour de force. She was on stage from beginiing to end - I was recently told by one of the stage crew that night that she had a refreshing bottle of water concealed in one of the statue's legs. Richard Armstrong is a much underated conductor and excelled with Elektra and the cast with a young Anne Evans, a youthful and eloquently wonderful Willard White and Pauline Tinsley sweeping all before her. The performance was engrossing from beginning to end, unrelenting, indeed. It was only after the curtain call I discovered that the lady in the seat immediately behind me had collapsed and been helped out by first aiders. It was that spell binding. The 43 year oldrecording is good and is in stereo and vividly recreates such wonderful performances.It lacks nothing for being in english - one only has to listen to the exchanges in the recognition scene to understand the emotions - at this point the microphone(s) perhaps benefit Willard White more than Pauline Tinsley.Her Dyers Wife in Frau Ohne Schatten with WNO about 5 years later is also well cast and a great performance also from Opera Depot.

An outstanding English performance of this operatic masterpiece starring the great underrated and overlooked soprano Pauline Tinsley! A must! Highly recommended!

Surprised by how well the words translated to English.

Following stunning performances as Verdi's Lady Macbeth and Abigaille it came as no surprise that Tinsley would triumph as Elektra. Tinsley is one of those singers whose stage magnetism draws you in even when absolutely still. Listening again to her first performance as Elektra, I was lucky to be there, her commitment is total. It's a thousand pities it was not captured on video. Add the nobility of Willard White's Orestes, the impassioned femininity of Ann Evans' Chrysothemis and the superb ranting of a nightmare Klytaemnestra from Debria Brown coupled with the orchestra of WNO under Richard Armstrong and you have an Elektra that anyone who loves the work should hear. Even without the visual impact the sheer intensity of her vocal delivery is astounding - the moments of emotional outpouring whether through hatred or guilt are superbly delivered. As a previous reviewer said Tinsley can dow venom - and how! Would that we could still see her at the close, reeling over the stage caught in the ropes hanging from a statue of Agamemnon, in a demented dance of death, the head held high, the body held erect in triumph before crumbling in strangulation, entwind in the ropes of her avenged father.

Stunning! Her first Elektra albeit in an English translation at Cardiff. I saw it later in London and Pauline was outstanding. One of the best if not the best interpreter of the role I ever saw. Later she sang in in German, in the Netherlands and Germany and rose to even great heights. Hopefully the performance from Amsterdam will be issued where she is joined by Anny Schlemm and Willard White! She is easily equal to if not greater than Birgit Nilsson in the role. Such a huge voice from a comparatively small woman!

Super performance with the sadly under-recorded Tinsley caught at her majestic best. She's tireless and you get so much detail and passion right to the end - she was such an exciting performer on stage. Great singing from Willard White as Orest and from Anne Evans as Chrysothemis - a great contrast vocally to Tinsley. Sound good generally. The translation is good and you hear it - superb diction from the cast!