O Mimi tu piu non torni : Eight great recordings 1907 to 1971 : new restorations.

O Mimi tu piu non torni (Ah Mimi, you will never come back to me) is from Puccini's opera La boheme which was first produced at the Regio, Turin on 1st February 1896. A translation of the aria to English is as follows;
RODOLFO
to himself
O Mimi, you will return no more. O happy days,
tiny hands, sweet?scented tresses,

MARCELLO
replacing the ribbon in his pocket, to himself
I don't know how it is my ...
... brush works
and slaps on colours
against my will.

RODOLFO
… snow?white neck!
Oh Mimi, my short?lived youth!

MARCELLO
If I want to paint,
whether it be sky or land
or winter or spring,
it draws for me
two dark eyes
and provocative lips.
And there is Musetta's
face again, . . .

RODOLFO
taking a little bonnet from the table drawer; to himself
And you, dainty bonnet,
which she hid under the pillow when she left,
you know all our happiness.
Come to my heart, to my broken heart,
oh, come to my heart,
for love is dead.
The recordings on this video are
0:06 Enrico Caruso/Antonio Scotti 1907
3:02 John McCormack/Mario Sammarco 1910
5:57 Beniamino Gigli/Giuseppe De Luca 1927
8:22 Jan Peerce/Leonard Warren 1946
11:12 Giuseppe Di Stefano/Leonard Warren 1951
14:02 Jussi Bjorling/Robert Merrill 1956
16:57 Fritz Wunderlich/Hermann Prey 1960?
20:05 Placido Domingo/Sherrill Milnes 1971
I've tried to get the best possible sound from the mono recordings but those of Caruso and McCormack were made by purely mechanical means many years before microphones and other electrical equipment were used in recording studios and the sound quality is poor for both recordings.

Видео O Mimi tu piu non torni : Eight great recordings 1907 to 1971 : new restorations. канала Michael McGrail