Word: contralto
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Susan Allen, contralto, will give a free concert in Holmes Hall at North House...
Handel, Messiah: Soprano Elly Ameling, Contralto Anna Reynolds, Tenor Philip Langridge, Bass Gwynne Howell; Academy and Chorus of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner conducting (3 LPs, Argo). This is a masterly lesson in the art of making a familiar classic sound fresh and spontaneous. Marriner's authentically baroque phrasings, rhythms and instrumentations have much to do with that. So does his seemingly effortless ability simply to make music sing...
Cenerentola is less popular than Rossini's The Barber of Seville, probably because of its emphasis on bravura ensemble work over traditional solo arias. Further, the title role is written for an almost extinct species, the coloratura contralto. La Scala has such a rara avis in Lucia Valentini Terrani. She really has too hefty a look for an ideal Cinderella, but her voice was lusciously bronze and agile. The production is by France's Jean-Pierre Ponnelle; within a delightful children's cutout house, he manipulates his characters like a swinging Coppelius. How, for example, Soprano Margherita...
...more foibles than any other company-and, given the vicissitudes of the average opera company, that is saying a lot. Back in the 1770s, when it got ready to put on Gluck's landmark opera Orfeo and Euridice, 18th century male-chauvinist Parisians balked at having a male contralto play the hero, considering that an affront to their manhood; poor Gluck had to rewrite the part for tenor. In the 19th century, even a Wagner or a Verdi had to include a ballet in his opera or risk not getting it performed in Paris. In more recent times...
...exuberant parade. Conductor Raymond Leppard, a specialist in 17th century music, was an adventurous choice to lead the orchestra. He responded enthusiastically, adding an overture and some instrumentation of his own devising. Singing the part of Susan B. Anthony is Mignon Dunn, who claims she knows every mezzo and contralto role in Wagner's Ring cycle. Her voice sounded opulent, and in her rich scarlet uniform, she occasionally looked more like a warrior maid than a Quaker suffragist...