Opera d’Oro’s Grand Tier series presents the best-selling Opera d’Oro titles with deluxe new packaging at mid-price! This series has been an unqualified success in the budget category. Now, in response to popular demand, the best titles are being reissued with complete librettos in the original languages and fresh new English translations, stimulating essays on the operas by eminent writers on music, and striking artwork commissioned from Rafal Olbinski. This is one of the finest recordings of Bellini’s last, and in some ways greatest, opera. Luciano Pavarotti seldom sang the role of Arturo, and this is one of his rare appearances on disc in this role. Most of the traditional cuts are restored in this recording. Mirella Freni is in her best form, and emotionally communicative. Riccardo Muti is one of the finest conductors of Italian opera in recent times. The premiere of I puritani in Paris in 1835 gave Bellini the greatest triumph of his career. The audience cheered to the extent that the composer later wrote “The French had all gone mad.” Live broadcast, Rome, July 8,1969.