Word: mezzos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Rich, supple and shining, it was in its prime capable of effortlessly soaring from a smoky mezzo to the pure soprano gold of a perfectly spun high C. From her 1957 debut in San Francisco, as Madame Lidoine in Francis Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites, Price was recognized as a major talent. The following year, Conductor Herbert von Karajan cast her as Aida in Vienna; when she sang the Ethiopian princess at La Scala in 1960, one Italian critic exclaimed: "Our great Verdi would have found her the ideal Aida." Her Met debut came in 1961, as Leonora...
...Karajan, conductor; Deutsche Grammophon; 3 CDs). Karajan's earlier Carmen, with Leontyne Price and Franco Corelli, was a full-throated spectacular in the grand-opera tradition. This one, 19 years later, reflects his current preference for smaller voices in an almost chamber-like setting. Baltsa, a splendid Greek mezzo, who is not heard often enough on this side of the Atlantic, makes a sultry cigarette girl, and Spanish Tenor Carreras an ardent Don José. The intimate nature of the tragedy is enhanced by the use of spoken dialogue, which Bizet intended...
Presiding amiably over the chaos are three transplants-St. Louisans Ed Moose and his wife Mary Etta and New Yorker Sam Dietsch-who shared a goal of "opening a joint, a bar with some food," in Dietsch's words. The food is Italian mezzo frillissimo. Though much convention business will doubtless be conducted around the Square's white-clothed tables, Dietsch declines to use the term power lunch. Says he: "Power lunches are for those who have enough power not to go back to work." The house softball squad, Les Lapins Sauvages, plans to come out of semiperpetual...
Maddalena, Jean Rigby has a come-hither catch in her dark mezzo. Conducted by the ENO's impressive music director Mark Elder, 37, Rigoletto is a triumph...
Designed for the National Arts Center of Canada in 1982, the production stars Mezzo Marilyn Home in one of her patented sword-and-breastplate roles. It is scenically spectacular, full of the kind of deus ex machina theatricality that so delighted baroque audiences: dragon-drawn chariots fly through the air belching smoke, monsters writhe, and looming castles collapse in a heap of rubble. Bright and vivid, Rinaldo is a bauble for the eye; as sung by an imposing cast that includes Bass Samuel Ramey and Soprano Benita Valente, it is a treat for the ear. But whether it serves Handel...