OP1574. TOSCA, Live Performance, 3 April, 1965, w.Cleva Cond. Régine Crespin, Franco Corelli, George London, etc. (Slovenia) 2-Melodram GM 6.0021. Not a broadcast, rather an in-house 'Prompter's Box' recording in variable sound. Long out-of-print, final copy! - 608974160210

CRITIC REVIEWS:

“[Crespin’s] Tosca ranks with the best….Crespin is in superior vocal form, the command of her uniquely colored instrument impressive at both ends of the quantity spectrum, with a wealth of intermediate stages to augment expression….the voice possesses a marvelous gloom, its timbre creamy and full, even at half voice….At the precise moment when she demands to know Scarpia’s price (‘Quanto’ uttered low in the chest, like Milanov), Crespin’s Tosca is transformed. She changes from woman to negotiator – one can hear adopt a bargaining stance….One regrets this Tosca’s fate more than most.”

- Paul Jackson, SIGN-OFF FOR THE OLD MET, pp.437-38



"Crespin was the greatest singer to come out of France in the past half century….She expressed herself through words rather than through obvious histrionic gestures, and few artists enunciated so clearly, in any language – English and German included. Her French, of course, was perfect, so lucidly projected that the soprano had every right to expect her listeners to understand her. She never felt the need to exaggerate….Flickers of nuance are always sufficient for the intelligent operagoer."

- Ralph V. Lucano, AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE, Sept./Oct., 2007



"[Crespin] was surely one of the greatest French singers of the 20th Century; in fact…one of the great singers on records, one whose art goes well beyond the merely vocal….Beyond its size, [her voice] had a beautiful shimmer about it, a glowing quality present in all registers."

- Henry Fogel, FANFARE, March/April, 2005