In looking forward to bass-baritone Greer Grimsley's performance in our upcoming production of Gounod's FAUST, I thought it would be fun to look more closely at the role of Mephistopheles and the historic basses who sang the role.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered, not terribly long ago, that there were recordings of members of the very first production of Der Rosenkavalier from Dresden, 1911!  Here's an introduction to the very first soprano to sing the marvelous role of the Marschallin, Margarethe Siems.  Enjoy!

Luckily for us, Puccini's opera Turandot premiered in 1926, well after the invention of sound recording.  So even though we don't have a recording of excerpts from the opera by the two principals (soprano Rosa Raisa and Miguel Fleta), we do have recordings of some of the sopranos who made history in the role.  Let's survey a handful of those sopranos and see if we can get a good sound picture of what Puccini might have expected for the role.