Word: glucks
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...composers whose names adorn the proscenium arch of the Metropolitan Opera, Christoph Willibald Gluck is the oldest (1714-87), the least honored, the least sung.* Four of his 42 operas have been performed at the Met, but only at very rare intervals. Last week Gluck's Alcestis got a performance that restored some of the proper shine to his name...
...scheduling the first performance of Alcestis in eleven years, General Manager Rudolf Bing had two ideas: !) he wanted to hear Gluck's somberly magnificent music again and 2) he cannily thought that the challenge of the big name part might be enough to induce Kirsten Flagstad to postpone her retirement one more year. He was right. Though she was tired after 23 years of singing Wagnerian roles, she was intrigued with the idea of learning a difficult new role at 56-and singing in English for the first time on the U.S. opera stage...
...Mario Lanza). Quickly recovering from its surprise, Victor has reached into the treasury for more. In one LP, labeled Caruso In Opera and Song, the great tenor can be heard in ten arias, including familiar ones from Il Trovatore, Tosca and La Boheme. Famous Duets includes Caruso and Alma Gluck in La Traviata, and Caruso and Geraldine Farrar in the soaring first-act duet of Madame Butterfly. The quality of recording varies, since some of the originals were waxed as early...
...Unlike Gluck's Orfeo, which is sung by a contralto, Haydn's hero is a tenor. Like Gluck, Haydn saves his most compelling music for Orfeo to sing in Hades, but neither of the lovers is allowed to return to earth. Altogether, Haydn's Orfeo is closer in style to Don Giovanni than to Gluck. It has some of the Don's power and beauty, if not its delightful variety. Performance and recording: good...
...Kirsten Flagstad will return next season in a role she has never sung before: the title role in Gluck's Alceste (first & last Met performances: 1941). She will sing in English...