Word: danco
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...effective, chiefly because Canadian Tenor Leopold Simoneau's silver-hued voice seems less moving in the role of the suffering Orpheus than the lyric baritone of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, imaginatively cast by Decca in its German-language version. The supporting casts in both albums are excellent: Sopranos Suzanne Danco and Pierette Alarie (Epic), Maria Stader and Rita Streich (Decca). Despite the good singing, the recordings suffer from the opera's basic structural fault. Groundbreaker though he was in his own day, Composer Gluck stuck too closely to wearisome, undramatic alternation of choral passages and recitatives, thus kept...
...round out its imposing operatic catalogue. London has also released The Marriage of Figaro (4 LPs), with Hilde Gueden, Danco and Siepi, and the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Erich Kleiber, and The Magic Flute (3 LPs), with Gueden, Wilma Lipp, Simoneau and Berry, conducted by Karl Bohm. Both are first-rate performances and, as a bonus, the albums contain the complete musical scores...
Debussy: Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien (Suzanne Danco, soprano; Union Chorale de la Tour-de-Peilz; Suisse-Romande Orchestra conducted by Ernest Ansermet; London). Debussy's incidental music to D'Annunzio's mystery play of 1911. Its five scenes: Court of Lilies, the Magic Chamber, Council of the False Gods, the Stricken Laurel and Paradise. Debussy's vaporous music is ideal for the eerie atmosphere of miracles and superstition, and there are some exquisite songs sung in Danco's exquisite soprano...
Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust (Suzanne Danco, David Poleri, Martial Singher; Harvard and Radcliffe choruses; Boston Symphony conducted by Charles Munch; Victor 3 LPs). The greatest translation into music of Goethe's Faust, this score reaches heights of drama and tenderness undreamed of in Gounod's more popular version. Mephistopheles makes his entrances to portentous, brassy thunderclaps, Marguerite changes from an innocent child to a passionate woman in the toils of love, and Faust himself is almost painfully credible. The "dramatic legend" proved too big-and perhaps too tightly composed-to be a success on stage...
Berlioz' genius becomes most impressive when his work is performed with the insight of conductors like Charles Munch. Mr. Munch knows exactly where dull spots need his stimulus, and where he can let the phrases take their own course. Moreover, he had the advantage of excellent soloists. Suzanne Danco (Marguerite) and Martial Singher (Mephisto) sang with occasionally imperfect tone, but supreme understanding of how to translate French vowels and consonants into musical sound...