Word: herva
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...judgment of doting listeners, Arturo Toscanini's 1947 broadcast of Verdi's Otello may well have been the finest performance ever heard on the air. Soloists Herva Nelli, Ramon Vinay and Giuseppe Valdengo sang as if they were in a state of musical exaltation, and the NBC Symphony's orchestral commentary was both dramatic and tender. Recently, after long refusing, Toscanini agreed to let RCA Victor make records from the monitoring transcription, and last week the three LPs were released. It is probably the Maestro's masterpiece...
...Nervous Nelli One man who was always sure about Soprano Herva Nelli's voice was Arturo Toscanini. The first time he heard her sing he said, "There is my Desdemona," and gave her the role in his 1947 Otello. Some objected that Italian-born Nelli had sung only in minor-league opera in the U.S., and that she had not been heard by many others. "If she hasn't," said Toscanini, "she will be now." But up to last week, Herva Nelli's U.S. reputation was based on what she could do with the Maestro conducting...
...into squeaky soprano register and down into roaring baritone range as well. At drill's end each day he dismissed a thoroughly exhausted cast -including Metropolitan Opera Baritones Giuseppe Valdengo (Falstaff) and Frank Guarrera (Ford), Contralto Cloe Elmo (Dame Quickly), Mezzo-Soprano Nan Merriman (Mistress Page) and Soprano Herva Nelli (Mistress Ford). But as they dragged themselves home, the inexhaustible maestro, 40 years the senior of the eldest of them, tramped out with a fresh and fearsome eye to rehearse his weekly NBC Symphony programs...
...Richard Tucker had never before tried the big, dramatic tenor role of Radames; Toscanini's favorite soprano, red-haired Herva Nelli, who had had to hold herself in as Desdemona in his 1947 broadcast of Otello, was getting a chance to open up as Aida. He had picked three newcomers: slim Norwegian Contralto Eva Gustavson (Amneris), who arrived in the U.S. last October, young Canadian Bass-Baritone Dennis Harbour (the King of Egypt), who a fortnight ago won the Met's radio auditions, and Soprano Teresa Randall (the Priestess), a finalist in the same contest. Baritone Giuseppe Valdengo...
...Symphony (Sat. 6:30 p.m., NBC and NBC-TV). Toscanini presents Acts I & II of Aïda, with Herva Nelli and Richard Tucker...