Word: figaro
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...alternate cast for the Barber of Seville is easily as strong as that of opening night. Dominating the performance is Frederick Brozer as Figaro. He has a big voice which he projects well, and he invests the role with considerable charm. Marietta Perl makes Rosina an artful coquette, and manages the difficult vocal line with a minimum of effort...
...acting was of a uniformly high order, with Ronald Gerbrands' protrayal of Basilio setting the pace. His big aria "Start a Rumor" (La Calumnia) stopped the show. William Nethercut sang and acted Figaro without straining, and the result was a characterization that helped hold the entire performance together. Robert Cortright looked noble as Count Almaviva, but found the role too high in pitch and too ornate for his basically sympathetic tenor voice. Arthur Anderson also has vocal difficulties as Doctor Bartolo, but he acts the old stodge convincingly. In smaller parts Laurence Chvany and Grace Lewis are excellent, and Noel...
...band played, floats lined the streets, a mob jammed the station and cheered. South Bend, Ind. was out in force to greet the NBC Opera Company as if it were a conquering football team. When the curtain opened on Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in the new $2,500,000 arts center of St. Mary's College, the house was packed; when it closed, the audience was happily enthusiastic. It was a rousing send-off for a costly experiment by NBC -to send its opera company barnstorming across the country to bring first-rate opera to towns...
Vocal Sacrifice. Adler and Chotzinoff rounded up a group of young singers, among them one Mario Lanza, schooled them in acting, had them rehearse English versions of La Boheme and Figaro. As Adler tells it, one night he "trapped" RCA Boss General Sarnoff at a dinner party, and hustled out his little group to sing. When the music ended. Sarnoff looked accusingly at Adler, then sighed: "O.K., put them on the air." Adler & Co. went on the air in 1949, have been on ever since...
...great opera musically; it is not designed to be. But it may well prove his argument that opera can be popular and as easy to take as musical comedy. In the next weeks, the company, 100 strong including a 41-man orchestra, will do 54 performances of Figaro and Puccini's Madame Butterfly, sometimes in communities as small as Lake Charles, La. and Pittsburg, Kans. If there is a customer for every seat at every performance, the tour will still lose at least $150,000. But if the company makes that many new aficionados for opera, NBC will consider...