Word: mccrackens
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ROBERT D. MCCRACKEN Tonopah...
Voice of Firestone (ABC, 10-10:30 p.m.). Highlights from Verdi's Otello, with Tenor James McCracken, Soprano Gabriella Tucci and Baritone Robert Merrill...
Wholly Devoted. McCracken's first tour at the Met did little more than complicate his life by elevating his taste. "Standing up to sing Home on the Range used to be a big deal for me," he says, recalling life back in Gary, Ind., where his father was fire chief. But after a year in the Roxy Theater chorus (four shows a day for 291 days running), some brief bad luck on Broadway, and a distant whiff of glory at the Met, he was wholly devoted to opera. He and his mezzo-soprano wife, Sandra Warfield. moved...
With some small successes behind him, McCracken went to Washington, D.C., three years ago to sing his first Otello. His mastery of the part won him other bookings in it, and since then he has sung the role more than 50 times in ten different productions. For all his familiarity with the Moor, he still dwells on Otello's mysteries and often the tragedy of it gets to him. ''Sometimes the death of Otello affects me so much," he says, "that tears fall and I begin to choke up. That's no good. The audience gets...
...McCracken will sing his Otello nine more times this season in New York and on the Met's seven-city tour. On March 23 the performance will be broadcast, and on April 7 McCracken will sing two arias and two duets from the opera over ABC-TY's Voice of Firestone. He is quite content to let Wagnerian heroes' roles await him while he plays out his fascination with Otello. "I love Otello." he says. "It's done so much for me that I'd hate to say another is my favorite role. Putting...