Word: heldentenore
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...Irish bride is so commandingly portrayed, the Met's production does not satisfy entirely. Though Ramon Vinay and Karl Liebl are seasoned, intelligent performers, neither has the considerable vocal resources or discipline requisite for the taxing part. When Melchior left the Metropolitan's stage in 1949, there was no Heldentenor to replace him. By that time, Set Svanhom, his beautiful voice always a bit too lyric for the heaviest Wagnerian tenor roles such as Tristan and Parsifal, was also to retire. After Svanholm's few remaining years with the company, no one could be found on either side...
...will have all the more opportunity to hear it. One looks forward to further demonstrations of her singing, especially in the Wagnerian repertoire which, since Flagstad's retirement from the stage, has been handled by second-rate sopranos. Wagner days are probably back at the Met, even if a Heldentenor remains lacking. Wagnerities, rejoice, there is a new heroine for you to acclaim! IAN STRASFOGEL
...Isolde. The occasion: Florence's Maggio Musicale. In charge: eccentric, peripatetic Conductor Artur Rodzinski (born a Pole in Yugoslavia, he is a longtime U.S. citizen, now lives in Italy). Among leading singers: Swedish Soprano Birgit Nilsson as Isolde, Cleveland's Mezzo-Soprano Grace Hoffman as Brangane, German Heldentenor Wolfgang Windgassen as Tristan...
Paramount gave her a screen test, coldly classified her appearance as "unprepossessing but took a high shine to her etching voice. After a breaking-in period she was funneled into a script called The Mars Are Singing that had aging Heldentenor Lauritz Melchior, youthful Soprano Anna Maria Alberghetti (TIME, May 8, 1950) and a performing dog to recommend it, but little else. To Rosemary the director parceled out a couple of routine songs, Haven't Got a Worry and Lovely Weather for Ducks, and a reprise of Come On-a My House; it began to look...
Amidst loud cries of wounded pride and outrage, the new manager proceeded to drop 39 singers, including hitherto sacrosanct Heldentenor Lauritz Melchior, 60, whose wanderings from the score had been the bane of Met conductors for years. There were wild charges that Manager Bing, Vienna-born and German-trained, would try to force even more of the heavy dumpling of Wagner down the throats of audiences that are notably partial to lighter Italian and French fare. (Actually, Bing has little enthusiasm for Wagner.) When he signed famed Soprano Kirsten Flagstad to appear at the Met for the first time since...