Live performance, Milan, April 4, 1956. Puccini made a big hit with the American public when his new opera, The Girl of the Golden West, had its fi rst performance, not in Italy but at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, with Emmy Destinn and Enrico Caruso in the leading roles, and Toscanini conducting. The enthralled audience called out the composer and cast forty-seven times and placed on Puccini’s head a silver crown bearing the national colors of Italy and the US. When Franco Corelli died recently in Milan at the age of eighty-two, the opera world lost one of its most colorful figures, and the most thrilling Italian tenor of his generation. With his powerful voice and movie-star looks, Corelli became an opera matinee idol from the 1950s until his retirement in 1976. Opera d’Oro’s Grand Tier series presents the best-selling Opera d’Oro titles with libretto and deluxe new packaging at mid-price!