Word: mezzos
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Leonard Bernstein, in a guest appearance with the Vienna Philharmonic (London), gives a turbulent interpretation that shows his affinity for Mahler. But Tenor James King sounds a bit forced, and the second soloist is a baritone instead of the usual, complementary mezzo-soprano. However, that baritone is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and his 30-minute Farewell is a perfect fusion of poetry and song...
Otto Klemperer's version, with the Philharmonia and New Philharmonia orchestras (Angel; 2 LPs), has superb soloists, Mezzo-Soprano Christa Ludwig and Tenor Fritz Wunderlich, whose promise was cut short by his accidental death last summer at 35. The orchestra sounds wonderfully clear and portentous, as though this were the last music to be played on the day of doom. Although Klemperer's playing time is actually shorter than Bernstein's, Angel chose to record the piece on three LP sides, filling the fourth with five Mahler songs...
...Rudel, the singers projected their parts with clarity and polish while threading their way through Ming Cho Lee's surrealistic settings. Mexican Tenor Salvador Novoa eloquently voiced the pain and weakness of the Duke, and statuesque Joanna Simon, as the courtesan, sang her seduction aria in a lustrous mezzo-soprano...
Joan Fuerstman's dark yet well-focused mezzo-soprano was the highlight of the evening. Besides the Poulenc she sang Ravel's Deux chansons hebraiques, which contrasts the rhapsodically set Hebrew poetry of the "Kaddish" with the simple Yiddish wisdom of "L'Enigme eternelle." She closed the program with a performance of the Siete Canciones populares Espanoles of Manuel de Falla. Both works date from 1914 and were perfectly suited to her expressive temperament. She performed them with an unostentatious professional polish that was pleasing to hear...
...fastest-rising male dancer, Anthony Dowell, 24. Though always a brooding, ominous figure, the Messenger was also a familiar and alluring one, sometimes standing patiently to the side, sometimes dancing among the other figures or carrying them away. At the end, something beyond his triumph was suggested as the mezzo-soprano sang, "Everywhere and forever the distance looks bright and blue-forever . . . forever," and he and the Everyman and Woman figures united in a slow, floating movement directly toward the audience...