Word: mezzo
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...last--a classy Christmas album. Von Otter, the best of all possible mezzo-sopranos, has put together a kaleidoscopically varied program of pop, jazz, classical and folk songs accompanied by an equally diverse instrumental ensemble (accordion, marimba, guitar, synthesizers, a brass quintet--you name it, she's got it). Every number, be it Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, O Come, All Ye Faithful or Benjamin Britten's Corpus Christi Carol, is sung with stylish grace and disarming sincerity. And unlike most classical singers, Von Otter knows how to make a pop tune swing...
...forge a musical language appropriate to the task. A prime mover in the ragtime revival of the 1960s, he has long been up to his ears in vernacular music, lavishly stirring it into his classical compositions (McTeague, Songs of Innocence and Experience) and accompanying his wife, the mezzo-soprano Joan Morris, in delectable recitals of popular song (they do everything from Sondheim to Shine On, Harvest Moon...
MOST GRACEFUL EXIT Mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade (8), at Sierra Nevada College, who sang Aaron Copeland's Simple Gifts...
Opera ultimately belongs to the singers, however, and La Traviata was no exception. All the performers, leads and chorus alike, showed remarkable vocal prowess and passion, and among the minor characters mezzo-soprano Gale Fuller's charming and coquettish Flora Bervoix (a courtesan whose wardrobe is far more scandalous than that of Violetta) was especially memorable and a well-needed break from the heavy tragedy of the rest of the opera...
...over a lifetime of being a devoted (obsessive?) opera fan and a cultural critic for the Wall Street Journal. Although Bartoli's seductive portrait is emblazoned on the cover and her name is included in the title, Bartoli remains elusive in the narrative. Hoelterhoff followed the shy off-stage mezzo on and off from 1995 to 1997 and attempted to capture her "rags to riches" story by making a parallel between Bartoli and her signature role as Cinderella in Rossini's Cenerentola. Bartoli's story, however, is quickly overshadowed and nearly buried by the more colorful personalities that she encounters...