Recital

A famous Decca operatic recital, long unavailable, celebrating the thrilling voice and short-lived career of a soprano who set operatic stages alight in the late 1950s.

Anita Cerquetti made only two commercial recordings, both for Decca under the baton of Gianandrea Gavazzeni. In 1957 she sang the title role in a complete La Gioconda with Mario del Monaco and Giulietta Simionato also reissued by Eloquence. From the year before we also have this operatic recital in early stereo sound. There should have been many more recordings, but Cerquetti was forced to retire both from the stage and from singing altogether in 1961, aged only 30, with vocal problems putting paid to an all-too-meteoric career. A projected recording of Norma was begun, but as the story goes, Cerquetti was indisposed and the recording was abandoned.