Word: melchior
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Between courses of a Wagnerian dinner, Danish-born Heldentenor Lauritz Melchior, 69, sounded off on the state of U.S. music: "Do you realize we are the only civilized nation without a ministry of the arts in the Government? Do you think we would have all this juvenile delinquency if our youth were introduced to the fineness of great music and art? Instead we give them criminal entertainment and savage music that builds up in them excitements that they are told they must not release." The Melchior prescription: "I suggest that each state levy a small tax on radio...
...seizure of laughter that the orchestra had to finish the scene by itself. During half a century, Mezzo Belleri has also developed some unshakable critical judgments. Elizabeth Rethberg was "absolutely the greatest soprano" she ever heard, while Margarete Matzenauer was "the mezzo of the ages." As for Lauritz Melchior, "I will never hear another Lohengrin like...
...fill the gigantic mold of a Wagnerian hero, a tenor should 1) have a voice big enough and resonant enough to soar over the timpani-tempered Wagnerian orchestra, 2) be robust enough to support swooning Wagnerian sopranos, and 3) preferably be named Lauritz Melchior. At the Metropolitan Opera last week, a topnotch revival of Wagner's Die Walkuere (conducted by Karl Boehm) offered the audience a dramatic tenor who ideally fulfilled the first two requirements and made the third one seem unimportant. The tenor: 33-year-old, Canadian-born Jon Vickers...
...lyrical Winterstuerme, wichen dem Wonnemond. Vickers received stirring if somewhat uneven support from Sopranos Aase Nordmo Loevberg as Sieglinde, Birgit Nilsson as Bruennhilde, and a whole troop of excellent Valkyries, but he was plainly the star of the evening. Soprano Nilsson: "I hope Vickers will be for me what Melchior was to Flagstad...
Nilsson is not only notable for her Isolde; she also sings, apparently with comparable success, Turandot, all the Brunnehildes, and Leonora and Senta (both of which she will do later in the Met season). The roles, all extremely taxing, do not tire Nilsson out. Like the famed stamina of Melchior, who missed only three performances out of the over 500 scheduled for him at the Met, Nilsson's endurance is phenomenal. She thinks nothing of singing three Isoldes in a week, a feat which she plans for later in the season. Any other soprano would request four days separating each...