Word: lyricisms
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...pedestrian level. Strauss's Daphne, written when the composer was 72, is a tired piece, with only one touch of genius: the wizardry of the instrumental passage depicting the mythic heroine as she turns into a laurel tree. As Daphne, Soprano Roberta Alexander sang with an unusually pure lyric voice. But it's a long wait for the laurels-which will never be awarded to Daphne anyway. -By Michael Walsh
Europe's great lyric soprano is expanding her career-maybe...
Vibrant and attractive, she could be a successful businesswoman or a television newscaster. But then Mirella Freni opens her mouth to sing. And suddenly there is only the voice-the voice of the world's foremost lyric soprano...
...when many singers stretch their repertories by taking on roles unsuited to their voices and thus hasten the end of their careers, the Italian-born Freni has remained close to her lyric roots. She comes from the world of the poor, consumptive Mimi in Puccini's La Bohème and the sparkling, scheming Susanna in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Despite taking on some distinctly heavier parts, mostly Verdi heroines, in recent years-Aida, Desdemona in Otello and Elisabeth in Don Carlos-she is still rightly regarded as the finest Mimi and Susanna around. "The dramatic...
This has come as a surprise to those who have always thought of her as essentially a lyric soprano, including Freni. Says she: "When I started, I thought Mozart and La Bohème would be the maximum for me." For challenging her to expand her range she credits Karajan, the controversial, magisterial Austrian conductor who has played Svengali to her Trilby. It was with Karajan at La Scala that she came to international attention, singing Mimi in Franco Zeffirelli's 1963 production of La Bohème, and it has been with Karajan at his Salzburg Festival that...