Dame Josephine Barstow is in excellent shape for this performance from the ENO. Other reviewers here actually saw her in this run. I didn't have that opportunity, but Barstow is one of those singers whose personality is so vivid that one can easily see them in the mind's eye. She negotiates the coloratura of Act One well (no, she doesn't sing an E-flat at the end of "Sempre libera") and skillfully creates a fully realized Violetta. The other singers show how high the standard was at the ENO during the 70's. John Brecknock and Neil Howlett are first-class all the way and the supporting singers are just as good. John Wilks leads a very satisfying performance.Whoever recorded this (from the house) was closer than whoever recorded the Tosca with Barstow (also available from Opera Depot), but the singers are a little distant. One can always hear them, but the translation isn't easy to make out. I think the Edmund Tracey translation is used (it's also heard on the EMI/Chandos set with Valerie Masterson).Textually, we get one verse of "Ah, forse e lui" and "Addio del passato" and one verse each of the cabalettas for Alfredo and Germont. An enjoyable Traviata then, especially for Barstow fans!

I remember seeing Barstow in this production, and she is definitely one of the most thrilling and moving Violetta's I have seen, and Idid see Callas in a very old down at heel production at Covent Garden. But it is unfortunate that this recording is obviously taken from a private recording in the audience, the voices all sound rather distant, although the orchestra is very forward. I am sure there was a BBC relay of this production, what a shame that could not have been used to preserve one of the great Traviata's.

Yes Barstow was good. But I did see Callas, Sutherland and Freni and they were, I'm afraid, in another class. As the review says, her English is not very clear - and that's what I always found with Barstow. You could always hear Brecknock's impeccable English - a much underrated and recorded tenor. In roles such as Belmonte, Werther, des Grieux, Romeo etc. he was world class and did sing some of these roles in the original language in Europe and America. My greatest British Violetta was Ava June who sang it in the final seasons of SW Opera at Sadler's Wells theatre. Wonderful singing and dramatic intensity - she sang English as though it were Italian.

Barstow remains the greatest Violetta I ever saw in the theatre and I saw such great vocal interpreters as Sutherland and Caballe. Cotrubas was very good as were a host of singers probably more or less forgotten now – Masterson, Lois Mc Donnell, Harwood. Anne Evans! later Barenboim’s Brunnhilde (and maybe as a result of her Violettas, a Brunnhilde who can trill). I keep going to performances of La Traviata of course and have seen some notable Violettas – best of them , perhaps surprisingly, was Christine Schafer. She alone approached Barstow’s intensity. But no, in the theatre and without having seen Callas, no one could match Barstow. She was, and remains for me, Violetta.