Word: cleva
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...Manager Bing, and canceled her performance because of a throat irritation. Harassed Manager Bing, firmly siding with Diva Callas, said Sordello had been fired solely because he had added extra embellishments and showy high notes to his part in Lucia, and, when reprimanded, had been "impertinent" to Conductor Fausto Cleva. The final Callas word on Sordello: "He's nothing but a bit player and a nasty...
...house, she was just a demure little coloratura. But opportunity beckoned in her florid aria, Caro Nome, and Soprano Robin seized it: she unexpectedly gave out with what critics call a B "in altissimo"-up in the whistling range. The audience gasped at the piercing sound (which Conductor Fausto Cleva had specifically outlawed during rehearsals), and the critics scolded. Wrote the Examiner's Alexander Fried: "Startling is the word for the tone . . . It was so loud and impetuous that it sounded more like a cry of alarm than a musical tone." Nevertheless, Mado Robin scored a popular success when...
Verdi: Otello (excerpts) (Ramon Vinay, tenor; Eleanor Steber, soprano; Frank Guarrera, baritone; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva conducting; Columbia, 2 sides LP). This anthology includes the best duets and arias of Verdi's best opera. Vinay defends his title as the finest Moor of the day, and Steber makes a pure-voiced Desdemona; Guarrera is not malignant enough to do Iago full justice. Recording: excellent...
...Verdi's triumphal tragedy of the Nile, Bing had brought in the same crack team that gave Verdi's Don Carlo a new glow last season: Broadway's Maggie Webster and Designer Rolf Gerard. They soon found out what everyone from Bing to Conductor Fausto Cleva definitely did not want: "All those wobbling sphinxes, painted canvas temples, unrehearsed supers in ridiculous costumes, and four-footed beasts." They set out to make the new Aïda "as simple and uncluttered as possible...
Leoncavallo: Pagliacci (Richard Tucker, tenor; Lucine Amara, soprano; Giuseppe Valdengo, baritone; orchestra and chorus of the Metropolitan Opera, Fausto Cleva conducting; Columbia, 4 sides LP). More proof that Met performances are usually better to listen to than to look at-and that Richard Tucker is one of the notable tenors...