Word: duet
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...chorus. Ruth Vebelhoer, the sorceress, has a powerful and attractive voice, and she used both her voice and beautiful gestures well in communicating the sorceress' ghastliness. Of the two witches, Phyllis Wilner had the better disciplined voice; both she and Gareth Wellington sang sensitively, especially in their duet early in the second...
...instrumentalists were equally outstanding. The string section was rich and sparkling, with the violins producing elegant duet passages in the Magnificat. The strings contribute warmth, but most of the color came from the wind section, a combination of two oboes, English horn, bassoon, and trombone. Lisa Crawford's organ part was solid, even though her choice of registrations in the hymn made the accompaniment too prominent...
...acoustics, both orchestra and singers sounded incredibly clear and uncannily near. A far cry, as they say, from Lincoln Center's State Theatre, where people sixteen rows back in the Orchestra shouted "Louder!" at Paul Schofield in King Lear. Cornell MacNeil stole the show in La Gioconda, and his duet with Franco Corelli brought down the house. Neither Renata Tebaldi nor Cesare Siepi were quite as brilliant, but the singing all around was fine. The Met is an avowed showcase for stars, and it was the stars who put over this museum piece...
DEBUSSY: SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO (Everest). In Debussy's ethereal duet, written the year before he died, the sinuous lines of the violin float on air while the piano furnishes ground swells of sound. Debussy's directions for the second movement-"fantastic and light"-set the entire mood for French Violinist Christian Ferras and Pianist Pierre Barbizet. They also play Fauré's Second Violin Sonata, written like Debussy's in 1917 and likewise impressionist in manner, but more restrained...
...often the care, the audience's favorite was Zerlina, sung as soubrettishly as bearable by Spring Fairbank. Although her two charming scenes with Masetto were flawless, perhaps the most stylish singing came in the "La ci darem" duet with Giovanni. Bass Tom Weber, while rather dry-sounding and somewhat strained, made the most of Leporello's varied moods and tasks, though perhaps not with the same hilarity of his Don Alfonso (of last year's Cori). Less satisfactory were the nasal tenor of August Paglialunga, a peculiarly huge Don Ottavio, and the half-sung Masetto of Don Meaders...