Word: mezzos
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...Ariadne” lends itself easily to multiple layers of self-reference and interpretation. It consists of a Prologue and an Opera, the first framing the second. In the Prologue, a prodigiously young Composer (mezzo-soprano Edyta Kulczak) is about to see his first opera, the very serious “Ariadne auf Naxos,” performed at the court of a Viennese nobleman. However, at the nobleman’s behest, the order is given for the new opera to be combined with a troop of harlequins also slated to perform that evening. The second act, the Opera...
...space can make the singers sound quieter than they actually are. Given these constraints, sometimes mezzo-fortes in place of pianos might have been more helpful for both the audience and the cast, as the more nuanced dynamic gestures often disappear beneath the accompaniment. Lucid narrative drive compensates for the occasional gaps in audibility, though, and a coherent collective vision of the direction of each scene helps anchor the plot to a regular pace (“Herring,” with apologies to Britten, does tend to saunter rather than walk). Matthew B. Bird...
...Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too,” the singer/songwriter immediately begins her unapologetic expression of a woman’s emotion. Over syncopated drums and her own rhythmic guitar playing, Wainwright’s voice, by no means rich or soothing, is like a mezzo-soprano Lucinda Williams. She achingly describes how “there are days when the cage doesn’t seem to open very wide at all,” referring to her own debilitating obsession with a man that has “love in his heart?...
...following year. It was a painful decision, as his parliamentary salary disappeared, along with government patronage for his art. "We didn't have a lot of money," recalls Maya, who says most of the family's income came from her mother's piano lessons and singing (Rose was a mezzo-soprano who frequently performed on national radio...
...Schnabel's. Today, Toscanini's interpretations sound merely coarse, the vaunted NBC Symphony distinctly second-rate. What, one wonders, was all the fuss about? Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 3 (''Eroica'') and 8. Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon). Beethoven: Symphony No. 9. Soprano Carol Vaness, Mezzo Janice Taylor, Tenor Siegfried Jerusalem, Bass Robert Lloyd; Christoph von Dohnanyi conducting the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus (Telarc). Every decade Karajan tackles the Beethoven symphonies, and these new recordings of the heroic Third and frisky Eighth complete his latest cycle. Like his previous version, issued in the mid-1970s, these interpretations...