Word: coloraturas
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Zagreb; Vanguard). Teen-age instrumental works by one of the world's most brilliant vocal composers. His irresistible melody is already bubbling, and there is hardly a note that does not solace the ear. The style is as neat, light and humorous as Rossini's later coloratura arias...
...Metropolitan Opera has a dazzling new coloratura soprano. She is Atlanta-born Mattiwilda Dobbs, 31, pert, appealing to the eye, solacing to the most opera-worn ear. She made her debut as Gilda in Rigoletto last week, and the event was doubly important, for she is the first Negro to sing a romantic lead...
...spaces for her graceful vocal glides and glitters. Soprano Dobbs sounded smooth as cashmere beside the tweedy textures of Tenor Jan Peerce and Baritone Leonard Warren. Her phrasing was always neat and true; in lyrical passages her voice floated with never an edge. In Verdi's showy old coloratura bits, e.g., Caro Nome, it glittered clear and bright as a glockenspiel in a football band. She was nervous at first-her vibrato was fast as a canary's, and she heaved her pretty bosom with each breath, which is not regarded good form-but she stopped the show...
This music, however, is as difficult to sing as it is easy to listen to. All the major parts have florid melodies to sing, as in Rossini's day coloratura was not only for sopranos. No one in last night's cast completely escaped this difficulty, but the singers made up in spirit what they lacked in flexibility. Anne Wallace had the least trouble with the style, and as well as singing tastefully she looked very pretty as Rosina...
...this invitingly gaudy material Composer Moore has wrought a clean, melodious score which succeeds in conveying strong period flavor without being condescendingly folksy. Its melodic high spots include Baby Doe's Willow Song, the stunning Silver Song (sung by Met Coloratura Dolores Wilson) and a moving choral, Lovely Evening. Sophisticated musically, the score nevertheless is marked by a clarity rare to the U.S. opera stage. "Most composers today seem to be writing under such influences as Schoenberg and Stravinsky," says Moore. "I tried to return to melody as the key to communication." Others will get a chance to decide...