Word: gounod
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...grand-opera highway, e.g., Carmen, Aïda, La Bohème. But San Francisco takes peculiar pride in traveling the byways as well. For its opener last week, San Francisco characteristically chose a seldom-heard version of the Faust legend, Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele, instead of Gounod's war horse, Faust...
Ezio Pinza, as Fiodor Chaliapin, the greatest basso of all time, seems to bring back some of the grandeur of the eccentric, boisterous Russian's voice. Singing the Coronation scene from Moussorgsky's Boris Godounov, he booms forth with amazing volume and gusto. Excerpts from Gounod's Faust also receive the same resounding treatment...
...Belgian Violinist Eugéne Ysaÿe, Isaac Stern plays a Wieniawski Concerto and Sarasate's Ziegeunerweisen. As Basso Feodor Chaliapin, Ezio Pinza, in a blond wig, swaggers off with the show by giving a lustily humorous performance and singing snatches from Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Gounod's Faust, and a chorus of The Volga Boatman. These latter-day artists offer an earnest approximation of the originals. David Wayne, using a vaguely Russian accent, plays Hurok as a kind of uncommercially-minded wet nurse to a gang of temperamental darlings. Veteran Hurok himself...
...other five: Beethoven, Gounod, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner...
Died. Leon Rothier, 76, French-born, grand-mannered basso at the Metropolitan Opera (1910-39), who sang a record-breaking 1,687 performances in 75 roles, was best known for his Mephistopheles in Gounod's Faust; of a heart ailment; in Manhattan. After retiring at 68, he gave voice lessons, ran a radio program, brought the house down at a soth anniversary concert in 1949, admitted: "My voice is still very good, you know, but it can't compare with the golden voice I once...