Word: arias
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Glorious Moment. Stars from the San Francisco or Metropolitan Opera appear from time to time in the audience, occasionally join in an aria or two. So far, none has provided the hoped-for Hollywood fadeout to the Bocce story by discovering a great new singer. But the Bocce has had at least one glorious moment: five years ago, with 3,300 tickets sold for a Pacific Opera performance of Pagliacci, Tenor Ernest Lawrence phoned to say he was too sick to sing Canio. Two hours before curtain time, Director Arturo Casiglia reached Bocce Tenor Arthur Peters, zipped him into...
CARLO BERGONZI, 33, a thickset, muscular Italian tenor who paces the stage as he winds up for a big aria, is well worth hearing when he finally stands still and left loose. His voice is warm, strong and sure. Good tenors are never in plentiful supply; with Fellow Newcomers Labo and Gedda, Bergonzi makes the Met unusually rich in the tenor department...
MARY CURTIS-VERNA, 30, a tall (5 ft. 7 in.), Massachusetts-born dramatic soprano, has become the Metropolitan's most highly publicized relief aria-pitcher in the year since she joined the company. Three times this season she substituted for ailing divas in starring roles (once, on three hours' notice and without rehearsal, she sang Donna Anna when Eleanor Steber fell ill), while maintaining her own schedule of Toscas, Leonoras and Aïdas. Unfortunately, there is more drama in her last-minute appearances offstage than on: her singing, often attractive enough, has little spark, often wins only...
...strenuous fasting, has wasted himself away to a mere 200 Ibs., and his tone is as plump as a Percheron's rump. As a musician, though, Lanza owes perhaps too much to his early conditioning as a delivery man for a wholesale grocer. No matter how light the aria, he delivers it-grunting and sweating and rolling his eyes -like a crate of olive...
...outstanding roles, and one of the most challenging in the repertory. As Norma, the Druid priestess, Callas came before her audience looking strikingly handsome in flowing robes, her dark hair aglitter with silver leaves. Midway in the first act, when she launched into the opera's most famed aria, Casta Diva, the house was hushed in taut expectancy. All of the familiar intensity was there, and the first notes were luminously clear. But as the aria moved into the upper registers, the voice seemed to darken and tremble. The audience responded with a mixture of hisses and bravos. Callas...