Sir Mark Elder on Rossini's Semiramide 

Sir Mark is a fascinating speaker, excellent.

Very interesting. Sutherland though did have the top E until the end of her career. Listen to the second Lucia Act II duet with Enrico for example. It features on Esclarmonde briefly and the singing scene from Fille du regiment. I guess she just rationed them.

How did I miss this?! Fascinating. 👏👏👏

A few additions and corrections. 1. Rossini's last Italian opera was IL Viaggio a Reims (1825) written in Paris. 2. Since 1962 when Sutherland revived Semiramide, it's been performed very frequently. 3. In 1992 the critical edition was published followed by 2 absolutely complete recordings. And since then, there have been many complete or near complete performances. And finally, the worst thing Richard Bonynge did to this masterpiece (besides cutting an hour's worth of music), was his unforgivable re-writting of the final scene in which he has Arsace kill Assur, not Semiramide, giving it a happy ending.