Word: contralto
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Beethoven: Missa Solemnis (Eileen Farrell, soprano; Carol Smith, contralto; Richard Lewis, tenor; Kim Borg, bass; the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein conducting; Columbia...
Schwarzkopf's introduction to the Paris opera public came late, as have most of the debuts of her career. She took no singing lessons until she was 17; then mistakenly trained as a contralto, she lost her voice and had to begin over again. After her wartime success in Germany, she did not appear on the stage until the blanket denazifications of 1946. About the same time, she was signed to a recording contract by Record Impresario Walter Legge, whom she later married. Now she is virtually alone among big-time singers in trying to divide her time equally...
...added an unlooked for ribaldry to the operetta). Only Celia (Miss Elinor Martin) has the wild-eyed boredom proper to a group of immortals who cannot determine why they bother to trip their completely meaningless measures. And Miss Colleen Ryan, the Queen of the Fairies, despite her attractive contralto voice, lacks the heavy authority of a true monarch...
...Rouben Ter-Arutunian ample scope for lush sets that imparted a sense of grandeur to the opera's five scenes. American Soprano Mary Costa, who played Ninette, sang beautifully but seemed lost in the schmalz-larded story. Only the heroine's quadroon mother, Cleo, superbly sung by Contralto Irene Dalis, took on the dimensions of life-a singular achievement while coping with some embarrassing lyrics: "Love had fled from your white heart, but my black one still lives in its hell...
...ample dark figure in the white gown with the gold-cross necklace lifted her majestic contralto through My Home Over There ("There's gonna be peace one day ), The Holy Bible, Ain't Goin' Study War No More, bending her notes in the manner of the great blues singer Bessie Smith. Occasionally, she stepped away from the microphone to let her big voice boom through the hall without the aid of electronics. When she got to Joshua Fit ae Battle of Jericho, the walls of the auditorium almost came down. Mahalia escaped only by improvising a song...