The Greatest Performance Of My Life
sometimes also entitled: Tonight I Gave The Greatest Performance Of My Life

Written by Roberto 'Sandro' Sanchez / Oscar Petri Anderle. English lyrics by Robert I. Allen.

Released on the 1972 album I Capricorn and on a single. The album has been re-released digitally remastered on CD recently and additionally this song is available on the CD collections The Greatest Hits - This Is My Life (European release) and Bassey - The EMI/UA Years 1959 - 1979.

Shirley Bassey has performed this song live on some concerts and shows which is always very emotional. You've the impression that her eyes must be filled with tears at the end of the song. A live performance has been released on Live In Japan '77 and on the 1995 video An Audience With Shirley Bassey.

The Argentinean composer team Sandro / Anderle has written more than 100 songs together, and I assume that this was originally one of their many Spanish compositions (obviously from 1968). Sandro is an Argentinean pop balladist. He was born Roberto Sánchez in 1945. He was successful not only in Argentina as singer, song-writer and later also as actor.
Robert Allen translated the song to English. He is a pop composer who worked much together with lyricist Al Stillman. I don't know how the original Spanish title was, before the translation.
This song had been sung in English by Nancy Wilson on an album 1971, but I don't know if the song has been translated for her, or if anyone else has performed it in English before her,

Pagliacci (sometimes also written Paliachi), which appears in the lyrics below, is an opera by Ruggero Leoncavallo, which has been performed first 1892. Pagliacci is Italian and means Clowns. The opera is about a small theatrical road company with clowns where also someone has to play a clown though his heart is breaking.
 

Lyrics:

Tonight I gave the greatest performance of my life
I never lost control, I played the part so well
That not a single soul could tell that I was lying

And so

though it was hard to face our friends I gave a party

I know

I meant to show them all I've gotten over you

And though

I saw the unbelieving looks on all their faces

I had to try to make them think that it was true
So I

who had me dance, dance through the night, just like a gypsy

And I

who seldom drink, drank like a fish till I was high

And I

who hadn't laughed since God knows when, outlaughed Pagliacci

Till they

believed it more than even I

Tonight I gave the greatest performance of my life
I never lost control, I played the part so well
That not a single soul could tell that I was lying

But love

if you had been behind the curtain when it fell

When all the lights were out and I was all alone
You would have seen

this actress crying

Yes, tonight I gave the greatest performance of my life
I never lost control, I played the part so well
That not a single soul could tell that I was lying

But love

if you had been behind the curtain when it fell

When all the lights were out and I was all alone
You would have seen

this actress crying

(transcribed by Roman <scribbler@gmx.net> supported by Gordon <gordonfh@email.msn.com>)