Word: finest
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Mozart: The Magic Flute (RIAS Symphony Orchestra, chorus and soloists conducted by Ferenc Fricsay; Decca, 3 LPs). Despite its slightly studied style and rather tubby sound, this is the finest recording yet to appear of the 165-year-old masterpiece. Soprano Maria Stader makes Pamina a joy to the ear; Rita Streich is awesomely secure in the Queen of the Night's sky-high aerobatics, while the two leading men, Tenor Ernst Häfliger and Baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, use their handsome voices with distinction...
...moment of pathos comes near act's end, as Joan refuses to exchange her male clothes for a dress, and the episode closes with music of real poignance. Act II moves more swiftly as Joan clashes violently with Bishop Pierre Cauchon, the only other major character. Her finest moments come in a dramatic song ending in her recantation. Soprano Elaine Malbin, as Joan, not only sang beautifully, but turned out to be an actress of imposing ability, and her whim per as the final flames rose about her was a terrible thing to hear...
Trial at Rouen is one of Composer Dello Joio's finest works, displaying his gift for vocal melody. The total effect is of opera in the Italian tradition, sturdier and more severe than the music of Menotti, but more full-bodied than the works of the extreme modernists...
...Gambler at the Met. Common as it is, tenoritis has rarely infected U.S. tenor Richard Tucker, who pined and paraded about the stage of Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House one night last week as Don José in Carmen near the end of his finest season yet. A onetime cantor in a New York synagogue, he is one of the top tenors, and some think the best, in the world today. "Caruso, Caruso, that's all you hear!" Met General Manager Rudolf Bing once said. "I have an idea we're going to be proud some...
...take it easy." Today, counting concert performances at $3,000 each, some 40 Met performances a season at $1,000 each, Tenor Tucker is in the $100,000 bracket. He is a big seller in the operatic record field. The latest: Starring Richard Tucker (Columbia LP), one of the finest one-man recitals on records...