Word: aria
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...aria was recorded with uproarious results by the late Florence Foster Jenkins (TIME, June 16, 1941), elderly amateur coloratura, whose costumed concerts in Manhattan were attended for the laughs...
...classics. The trouble was, none of the old boys knew how to start an opera right. They had a rousing overture, the curtain rose, and a bunch of minor characters went into some tedious, scene-setting song. What Hollywood wanted was an overture, curtain, and zowie-a tenor aria for Lauritz Melchior...
...Jeritza hit the Metropolitan Opera like a tidal wave. She sang the Vissi d'arte aria from Tosca lying flat on her face, the Seguidilla from Carmen flat on her back. In The Girl of the Golden West she rode a bronco on stage, and as Thai's she once celebrated her conversion to Christianity with a record high-jump that landed her in the hospital. All this musical whoopla endeared Jeritza to her public, if not to her fellow artists. Snorted Soprano Lilli Lehmann: "If you're a real artist you don't have...
...Soprano Irma Cooper had a beautiful tone, she lost control when singing either loudly or high. Less noticeable in Eilen Repp, contralto, and Harold Haugh, tenor, the lack of control again appeared in Bass John Metcalf. His usual clarity deserted him almost completely during the intricate chromatics of the aria, "Why do the nations so furiously rage together...
Queen Elizabeth had a ringing week. It began when Metropolitan Opera Star Marjorie Lawrence sang for her at Buckingham Palace and Princess Elizabeth's dog Crackers (a Corgi) barked during a Carmen aria (excitement, explained the Queen). Then the bells of St. Paul's paid tribute, for the first time since the start of the war, to the Queen's birthday (her 45th...