Word: bassos
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...usual sang and acted every line with half-crazed intensity, made the part so live that his audience could almost smell the sweat of medieval Moscow. Next day critics tried hard to find a new way of saying that Ezio Pinza is the world's greatest operatic basso, the greatest singing actor of his generation...
...operatic roles at a few hours' notice. He has no objection to playing minor roles, usually succeeds in making them seem major. No scene-stealer, he can be counted on to help inexperienced members of the cast. A wonderful example of what the Italians call a basso cantante ("singing bass"), he combines baritone agility with bass sonority and boom. That voice, at the Metropolitan and in concert tours, grosses between $75,000 and $100,000 a year...
Outside the opera house Basso Pinza looks like a prosperous retired bullfighter. He works over his roles as systematically as a strategist planning a campaign, ransacking Manhattan's libraries, boning up on history, costumes, manners. To make his Boris Godunoff fall dead with proper dignity, he practiced hurling his 191 lb. on to the Metropolitan's floor boards for hours, until he was so badly bruised he could hardly walk...
Seventh child of an Italian carpenter, Basso Pinza was born in Rome in 1892. His only youthful distinction was as a middling bicycle racer. The turning point came when he happened to sing O Sole Mio in the shower after taking second place in a local race. The man in the next shower told him he had a voice. Pinza was soon on his way to Bologna, where home-town folks chipped in to help him through the Rossini Conservatory. He scarcely had time for a jerkwater debut, when he was mustered into World...
...charity, opera's Tenor Jan Kiepura, Contralto Coe Glade, Basso Douglas Beattie pulled Salvation Army caps down over their identities, stood on a busy Chicago street corner for ten minutes and gave out with song. (Kiepura hummed in somewhat uncharitable economy of his voice.) The melody was golden, but the take was only $2. "It wasn't bad," said Beattie afterwards, "considering the fact that people walking by on the street are intent on other things...