Word: florestan
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...semi-quaver" to nothing, and brings out the smooth melody. As for "Arabesque," I heard it for the first time, and wished it were recorded more often. My delight was only slightly lessened when I read the record jacket, which said the piece contained two imaginary characters--the bold Florestan and the tender Eusebius--who represented the duality of Schumann's personality...
...scholarship, starting a career that led him at last to Covent Garden and a stunning success as Aeneas in Berlioz' The Trojans (TIME, June 17, 1957). A firm believer in the equal importance of acting and singing. Vickers is passionate and convincing as Otello, Don Jose in Carmen, Florestan in Fidelio and Siegmund in Die Walkure. His big, shining voice, surging over the orchestra, would seem ideal for Wagner, but Vickers is in no hurry to become a Heldentenor. "I love Wagner," says he, "but I want to sing for 25 years, not ten. German exploits the voice." Many...
Although the cultural commissars have just been converted to Beethoven, East German music lovers have steadfastly applauded him, but for different reasons: at a recent East Berlin Staatsoper performance of Beethoven's opera Fidelia, fans burst into applause after the Act I Freedom Chorus, stopped the show after Florestan's famous Act II aria, with its line, "I boldly said the truth, and chains are my reward...
Tenor Vickers made an inauspicious Met debut earlier in the year in Pagliacci, later scored a notable triumph as Florestan in Fidelio (TIME, Feb. 8). His performance last week in the role of Siegmund prompted some of the loudest and longest cheers heard at the Met this season. A solidly constructed man (5 ft. 9 in., 215 lbs., chest 47 in.), Vickers is a passionate, convincing actor; his voice is heavy but admirably flexible, capable of varied and subtle shadings. It was at its most spectacular when it surged over the orchestra in Siegmund's furious outbursts...
...Jacquino, and Bass Oskar Czerwenka contributed a strong, virile-voiced Jailer Rocco. But in their first-act quartet in the form of a canon, Mir ist so wunderbar, the four were often shakily uneven. The only real star of the evening proved to be Canadian Tenor Jon Vickers as Florestan, who sang his moving second-act aria, In des Lebens Frühlingstagen (In the springtime days of life), with conviction and power. The orchestra under Conductor Karl Boehm was ragged, and the winds tootled some of the wrongest notes to pierce the Met air in a long while...