Word: melchiors
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...great natural performer, something on the scale of Niagara Falls." That assessment of Tenor Lauritz Melchior by Metropolitan Opera Assistant Manager Francis Robinson is hardly hyperbole. When he died last week two days before his 83rd birthday, Melchior's gargantuan talents and zest for life were firmly established in opera's hagiography...
Standing 6 ft. 4 in., weighing 270 Ibs., Melchior was oversize in every way. Soprano Marjorie Lawrence tells of the time when she and Melchior both lived at New York's Ansonia Hotel and she saw him wearing his bathrobe in the corridor. One of the hotel staff explained that "there was no bathtub in the hotel that could hold him, so Lauritz was on his way to the roof-where there was a swimming pool." His talent was just as massive...
Judged by many to be the world's greatest dramatic tenor, Melchior actually began his career as a baritone. For four years he labored without distinction. Then a colleague observed that he was "not a baritone, but a tenor with a lid on." Melchior gradually made the switch, but he had to work another decade developing his technique as a tenor...
Temperamental. Still fame eluded him. All told, Melchior sang in Europe for 20 years before he got his big break: a matinee performance of Tannhäuser at the Met in 1926. Most of the critics' reviews-and raves-went to U.S.-born Soprano Marion Talley, who made her debut in the evening. "She lasted five years," according to the Met's Robinson. Melchior's day finally came in 1929 during his first performance in Tristan at the Met. After that Melchior reigned as opera's supreme heldentenor...
...quarter-century he was in constant demand in the world's great opera halls, sharing the stage with such stellar Wagnerian sopranos as Kirsten Flagstad, Frida Leider, Maria Miüller and Helen Traubel. Despite his rigorous schedule, Melchior never canceled a performance, something of a landmark for temperamental opera stars. Once while he was in Götterdämmerung he developed a swollen polyp that choked him; he found that by holding his head to one side he could sing-and sing he did for three hours...