Word: mezzo-soprano
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...stage was virtually stripped clean of scenery. Choristers stood in rigid rows like drill teams awaiting inspection; principal singers stirred hardly at all, and when they did, it was with the slow, deliberate movements of dream figures. The audience loved it, loudly bravoed Conductor Karl Böhm and Mezzo-Soprano Christa Ludwig. But the real star of the evening was not there: Richard Wagner's grandson Wieland...
Opera singers, like athletes, are nuts for conditioning-only nuttier. Where Mickey Mantle may shag a few fly balls, Baritone Robert Merrill stands on his head. Where Mickey Wright will hit a few off the practice tee, Mezzo-Soprano Rosalind Elias gargles champagne and does a belly dance. And for a preperformance pick-me-up, singers will have none of that sissy business of pep talks. They eat garlic...
...cultures in order to be fathomed, moves murkily between the spirit world, the human world of an impoverished dyer and his sensuous wife (Baritone Walter Berry and Soprano Christa Ludwig), and the go-between world of an emperor and his wife (Tenor James King and Soprano Leonie Rysanek). The empress, alas, is without a shadow-she cannot bear children-and with the aid of a Mephistophelean nurse (Mezzo-Soprano Irene Dalis) she attempts to divest the dyer's wife of her shadow with promises of riches. In the end, after wading knee-deep through a quagmire of symbolism...
Married. Giulietta Simionato, 55, Italian mezzo-soprano, who this week ends her 30-year career in European and U.S. opera with a farewell performance of La Clemenza di Tito at La Piccola Scala; and Cesare Frugoni, 84, retired Rome physician; both for the second time; in Rome...
Married. Nan Merriman, 45, mezzo-soprano whose abrupt retirement last April ended a brilliant 25-year concert career; and Tom Brand, 48, Dutch tenor; he for the second time (his first wife died in 1963, leaving ten children); in Heerlen, The Netherlands...