Word: mezzos
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Wagner: Parsifal (Tenor Peter Hofmann, Bass-Baritone José van Dam, Mezzo Dunja Vejzovic, Bass-Baritone Siegmund Nimsgern, Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic and Deutsche Oper Berlin Chorus; Deutsche Grammophon, five records). Wagner's last and most difficult music drama has not had a really satisfying recording-until now. Hofmann makes Parsifal both strong and guileless, the splendid Van Dam is an anguished Amfortas, and Nimsgern is an evil, but not inhuman Klingsor. Only Vejzovic, a screechy Kundry, is weak. The real stars are Karajan and his Berliners, who capture the score's glowing spirituality...
...Mottetti, stylishly performed by Mezzo-Soprano Janice Felty and Pianist Edward Auer, recalls the late Ital ian composer Luigi Dallapiccola in its lyricism and sophisticated melodic charm. Harbison sets dark, vivid images from Montale's Le Occasioni (1939) allusively, often employing the familiar device of musical tone painting. In the ninth poem, for example, the mezzo sings of a darting green lizard, and the piano responds with a scaly slither. But the music is much more than a literal transcription of the poetry, for Harbison has given it a deeper layer of meaning in transforming it into song...
...When L'Enfant was first produced in 1925, George Balanchine, then 21, provided the incidental choreography. But noble lineage does not burden this opera in the way that it does Satie's Parade, probably because it offers ample possibilities for different interpretations. The little boy (played by Mezzo-Soprano Hilda Harris) defies his mother, wrecks a pendulum clock, trashes a teapot, tears his books, rips the wallpaper off the wall, pulls the cat's tail and more...
...towns in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. Among the stops: Temple, Stillwater, San Marcos, Eagle Pass, Seguin and Harlingen. At times on such jaunts, a TOT engagement looks less like a brush with Parnassus than a rest stop at Parris Island. "I think it's like the Olympics," says Mezzo-Soprano Susanne Mentzer. "You have to sing, act, put on makeup and ride the bus on top of everything else." A measure of flexibility in casting is required: Galbraith sings the baritone role of Marcello in La Bohème, as well as the bass role of Dandini in Cinderella...
Verdi: Aïda (Mirella Freni, soprano; José Carreras, tenor; Agnes Baltsa, mezzo-soprano; Piero Cappuccilli, baritone; Ruggero Raimondi, bass; é van Dam, bass; Katia Ricciarelli, soprano; Thomas Moser, tenor; Vienna State Opera Chorus and the Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, conductor; Angel; three LPs). That old Ethiopian slave girl and would-be war bride finds a new and glorious incarnation in Mirella Freni, whose voice may not move pyramids but finds its way to the heart of the role. This is particularly true in the Nile Scene, where Aïda tussles with her passion for Radames...