Word: mezzo-soprano
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...past the Lyric has put on many a fine, star-heavy performance, and last week's cast was again impressive: Viennese Soprano Leonie Rysanek as Aïda, Italian Mezzo-Soprano Giulietta Simionato as Amneris, Swedish Tenor Jussi Bjoerling as Radames, Italian Baritone Tito Gobbi as Amonasro. But the stage sets looked as though they had been resurrected from an early copy of the Victor Book of Operas: cluttered scenes with every temple, tower and palm frond rendered in tedious detail. And Paris Opera Conductor Georges Sebastian throttled the tempo to a crawl, once even goaded Tenor Bjoerling into...
...third opera put on at Dallas was a repeat of Rossini's rarely performed romp, L'ltaliana in Algeri, introducing 23-year-old Spanish Mezzo-Soprano Teresa Berganza. The possessor of a silvery, dulcet voice, she acted the title role (an Italian girl imprisoned by a libidinous bey) with a kind of fresh, provincial charm. A onetime pianist, Mezzo Berganza has toured Europe in recitals but has had little operatic experience. The Dallas News's Critic John Rosenfield noted that L'ltaliana in Algeri had "ended up as a love affair between prima donna and patrons...
Very Little Brine. The premiere glowed with the performances of Soprano Phyllis Curtin's surgingly passionate Cathy and Mezzo-Soprano Regina Sarfaty's portrayal of Nelly, the maid. The 36-ft.-wide stage often seemed too small to contain the action, and in his effort to achieve "immediacy," Floyd produced a libretto so cliché-ridden that it dissipated the briny sense of evil that hung over Novelist Brontë's book. But the sweeping, intricate score pulsed with moments of moving lyricism: Edgar's proposal to Cathy ("Make me whole again"), Cathy's "dream...
...Mezzo-Soprano Hoffman held on to her Manhattan bar job while she took singing lessons. In 1951 she won a Fulbright scholarship to study opera in Italy, became a member first of the Zurich Stadt-theater, later of the Stuttgart Staatsoper. In her seven years in Europe. Grace has appeared at La Scala, Covent Garden. Florence. Bayreuth. With her 2½-octave range she has sung 20-odd roles, including Carmen. Gluck's Orpheus, Dora-bella in Mozart's Cosí fan Tutte, Ulrica in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera, plus mezzo and contralto parts...
ROSALIND ELIAS, 25, a dark-eyed mezzo-soprano, is slender enough to play the boy Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, provocative enough to goad her stage lovers convincingly to swordplay, as she did as Olga in Eugene Onegin. A Lebanese-American born in Lowell, Mass., she began singing the Metropolitan's smallest roles four years ago, rose to starring parts through a combination of good looks (she is the Met's youngest, prettiest leading singer) and a warm, full-timbered voice. Her latest success: Erika in Samuel Barber's Vanessa (TIME, Jan. 27). Although a good...