Eddie Pensier writes:

This glorious clip comes from a rare, never-aired 1974 Metropolitan Opera telecast of Jacques Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann. The late and great Joan Sutherland makes an absolute meal of this infamously difficult aria(“Les oiseaux dans la charmille”). She plays Olympia, the mechanical doll, with whom the opera’s title character falls in love. It’s hard to find on YouTube because the uploader misspelled Dame Joan’s surname. Plácido Domingo is the Hoffmann and Huguette Tourangeau sings Nicklausse.

Pure coloratura soprano awesomeness.

Bonus trivia: Did you know that Offenbach, who spent most of his life in Paris writing frothy French operettas, and composed the tune that many people think of when they think of France (the “Can Can” from Orphée aux enfers, and I bet you’re humming it right now, and ain’t I a stinker) , was actually German? He was sometimes called by the nickname “O de Cologne” after his birthplace.