Word: mezzos
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...citizen), New York's Astrid Varnay, Cleveland's Grace Hoffmann-plus California's Irene Dalis and San Francisco's Jess Thomas, both making their Bayreuth debuts in Parsifal. And appearing as Venus in a new production of Tannhäuser was St. Louis-born Mezzo Soprano Grace Bumbry, the first Negro ever to sing at Bayreuth...
What Wagner did require was an "elemental, erotic quality," and he found it in Mezzo Soprano Bumbry's voice, a naturally glorious, bronzelike instrument that ranged through the house with impressive power. But because Wieland's concept of the staging allowed Venus about as much movement as a mummy, premiere audiences could not judge whether Bumbry's acting was a match for her singing. As for the new production itself, it was typically spare in detail but marred by the intrusion of a few Radio City Music Hall touches: an angelic choir whose halos gradually became brighter...
Gutsy Bardot. As Kundry in Parsifal, Mezzo Soprano Dalis came close to fulfilling Wieland Wagner's concept of the character as ''a neurotic in the first act. Brigitte Bardot in the second, and a hospital nurse in the third." Dalis has a theory that she can catch Kundry's tempestuous passions more effectively if she does not vocalize before going onstage, thus retaining a certain gutsy quality in her voice. Last week her theory worked just fine: the voice had a raw, fitfully feverish cast, but it never became ugly or strident. Tenor Thomas was less...
Tynes's fine performance got strong backing from other American singers, particularly Mezzo-Soprano Lili Chookasian, 35, a voice teacher from Northwestern University, and Negro Tenor George Shirley, 27. Conductor Thomas Schippers handled Strauss's surging score with such brilliant control that he might even have satisfied the composer's father, who muttered when he heard Salome: "0 God, what nervous music! It is exactly as if one had one's trousers full of May bugs...
Brass Bugle. Shaw's background for criticism was his family of amateur musicians: a trombone-playing father, a harp-playing aunt, a mother with a mezzo-soprano voice of "remarkable purity of tone," and an uncle who played the ophicleide, a giant brass bugle. Shaw himself started training to become an operatic baritone, changed his mind, and at 20 began ghosting musical criticism for a London weekly, The Hornet, in conspiracy with his mother's voice teacher named Vandeleur Lee. While Lee posed as the magazine's critic, young Bernard wrote the notices. After a year...