Word: lps
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...public concerts in "Tents" (often palm-thatched bamboo shacks). In the U.S. there have been previous calypso flurries, including Rum and Coca-Cola in 1945, but the real boom was drummed in by Folk Singer Harry Belafonte, whose current album, Calypso, is one of the biggest selling LPs in RCA Victor history. In a velvety voice he sings Day 0 and Jamaica Farewell. (They are not really calypso, but no one seems to care...
...records from the broadcast tapes, Toscanini returned from retirement in 1954 to conduct at Carnegie Hall portions of the opera which did not satisfy him-namely, Soprano Herva Nelli's O Patria Mia and Ritorna Vincitor! (TIME, June 14, 1954). Last week Victor released (on three LPs) Toscanini's composite and deftly sound-doctored Aïda, the opera in which he made his conducting debut in Rio de Janeiro 71 years...
Having covered and re-covered the standard operatic repertory on LPs, e.g., ten complete and currently available Pagliaccis, seven Aïdas, five Butterflys, record companies have begun to dig for lesser known works. One of the happiest recent finds: Puccini's one-acter, II Tabarro, on an excellent RCA Victor LP. This somberly lyric tale of jealousy, betrayal and murder on a Seine River barge is sung with power and intensity by Baritone Tito Gobbi, Soprano Margaret Mas and Tenor Giacinto Prandelli, strongly backed by the Rome Opera's chorus and orchestra under Veteran Conductor Vincenzo Bellezza...
...nostalgic, there is Gustave Charpentier's Louise (Epic, 3 LPs), infrequently heard in the U.S. It is a sentimental apotheosis of the Gallic spirit, dating from a turn-of-the-century Paris that had never heard of existentialism. The work is not only good opera but good soap opera, telling the torturous romance of a working girl and her artist lover. The scene is the same turbulent Paris where Bohème's Rodolfo and Mimi loved, but while Puccini's Bohemians are really passionate Italians, Charpentier's characters are really Parisians-frothy, but a little...
Third item in this batch of operatic rarities: Arrigo Boïto's Mefistofele, newly recorded by RCA Victor on 2 LPs (with Boris Christoff, Giacinto Prandelli, Orietta Moscucci; Orchestra and Chorus of the Rome Opera conducted by Vittorio Gui). Known chiefly as a poet and mighty librettist (Verdi's Otello and Falstaff), Boïto always remained an interesting oddity as a composer; he premiered his version of Goethe's Faust at La Scala in 1868 only to see it booed off the stage after two performances because of its experimentation with Wagnerian techniques. Intellectually more...