Word: marschallin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Regine Crespin has an amazing voice. She recently pleased New York critics as the Marschallin in the Lotte Lehmann-directed Rosenkavalier at the Met, but New York has not yet heard anything like her "Divinites du Styx," which nearly knocked me out of my seat Thursday night...
French opera fans are wary of opera sung in foreign tongues: German, in particular, they think, is a language that sits uneasily in the throat. Nevertheless, when Soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, 46, was lured to Paris to make a double debut-as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier at the Paris Opéra, and as the Countess in Capriccio at the Opéra Comique-both productions were cast in the original German. In Soprano Schwarzkopf's case, the language might also have served as a reminder of her early career as a leader of a Nazi studentbund...
...Rosenkavalier she was by turns amorous, petulant, rueful, forgiving, giving vibrant conviction to her understanding of the Marschallin as "the typical sensuous woman." And with her pure soprano under fine control, she was even more impressive in Capriccio, the gentle "conversation piece for music" that stands as Strauss's operatic testament. The triumph was doubly remarkable because Capriccio is all talk and no action, an 18th century intellectual argument over the relative merits of words and music. Said Schwarzkopf, elated but astonished at her success: "Two Italian singers and some dancers appear, the countess changes her dress -and that...
...Metropolitan asked Schwarzkopf to appear in a production of Engen Onegin, but she refused because it was to be in English ("You try to project the th sound over 14 violins"). Would she still be interested in the Met? Perhaps, but ''if it's not Marschallin, then addio. It's their loss, not mine...
Although most of America's expatriate singers are unknown at home, many of them have built up sizable European reputations. New York-born Claire Watson, 33, was one of the hits of last summer's Munich Festival, where she appeared as the Marschallin in Rosenkavalier and Fiordiligi in Cosi Fan Tutte. Brooklyn's Evelyn Lear, 31, of West Berlin's State Opera created a sensation at the Vienna Festival in Alban Berg's Lulu. Her Texas-born husband, Baritone Thomas Stewart, 31, was a surprise success as Amfortas in last summer's Parsifal...