Hailed as ‘the best new opera since Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess’, Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Saint of Bleecker Street won the Pulitzer Prize for Music and the New York Drama Critics Circle award for Best Musical. Its underlying themes of immigrant life and religious fervour remain topical today.

The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore is part masque, part ballet and part chamber music. It presents three stages in the life of an eccentric poet, symbolised by the allegorical animals of the title.

Contents:
The Saint of Bleecker Street
Cast:
- Annina: Gabrielle Ruggiero
- Michele: David Poleri
- Desideria: Gloria Lane
- Carmela: Maria Di Gerlando
- Don Marco: Leon Lishner

Orchestra and Chorus / Thomas Schippers
Recorded in New York City, February-March 1955

The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore
Instrumental Ensemble and Chorus / Thomas Schippers
Recorded in New York City in 1957