Word: bellinis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Vincenzo Bellini's 1831 opera Norma is one of the Matterhorns of the repertory for sopranos. Many of the world's finest singers have come to grief on its melodic precipices because they lacked the bel canto technique, emotional projection, and soaringly powerful voice that the title role requires. The 19th century Soprano Lilli Lehmann said it was easier to sing three Brünnhildes than one Norma, and the great French Prima Donna Pauline Viardot was so obsessed with the difficulties of the part that the last word she spoke on her deathbed was "Norma." Maria Callas...
...Scala's novelty for this tour was Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, a bel canto relic that the company recently revived after a century of relative neglect. A retelling of the Romeo and Juliet story that owes little to Shakespeare, Capuleti, with Bellini's intimate scale, pervading sweetness and utter predictability, is a distinct contrast to Verdi's powerful, primitive themes and vaulting imagination. But the company -notably the two leads, Tenor Giacomo Aragall and Soprano Renata Scotto-traded the flawed gusto of its Trovatore and Nabucco performances for restraint and quiet artistry, making...
...rigidly remained until the 950s, when Maria Callas set the opera world on its ear by reviving the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini, and demonstrated that bel canto embellishments could be used to impart new and exciting interpretations to a role. She has since been followed by Sutherland, and in the past few years virtually every major young singer to appear, including Teresa Berganza Marilyn Home and Montserrat Caballe' has performed in bel canto operas...
...girl in a lemon yellow jacket and porcelain blue turban-Vermeer's favorite colors-with the inimitable pearl at her ear (opposite). Shy, sad, ingenuous yet intelligent, imbued with an air of mystery that has brought comparisons with the Mona Lisa and of devotion that matches a Bellini Madonna, she elicited Vermeer's greatest powers of portrayal-and through all the years kept the secret of her identity...
...Bruhn, who at 37 is the supreme danseur noble. The finest technician on two feet, his endless pursuit of classic perfection forgoes the kind of passionate abandon that marks the style of Rudolf Nureyev, the only other dancer in his class. Says one ballerina: "Nureyev is like Callas singing Bellini; Bruhn is like Schwarzkopf singing Mozart." But Bruhn has learned something about characterization from his friend Nureyev. As Don Jose in Roland Petit's version of Carmen, Bruhn was a man possessed, a smoldering Valentino driven by lust and racked with despair. Eyes afire, nostrils flaring, he sprang about...