Word: mezzos
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Before 1954, there were very few U.S. musical visitors. But since ANTA (American National Theater and Academy) started an international exchange program (TIME, June 6), several top U.S. artists, e.g., the Metropolitan Opera's Mezzo-Soprano Blanche Thebom and the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet, have made the trip. Last week Organist E. Power Biggs was exceptionally well received, and a septet of first chair men from the Boston Symphony arrived for joint concerts and some on its own. Next month another group of Russian artists will arrive, but next fall Icelanders expect to hear U.S. Violinist Ruggiero Ricci, Pianist Julius...
...translations. English does not lend itself really well to the rapid-fire arias of Bartolo and Figaro, but in recitatives it becomes invaluable for following nuances of the plot. Apart from the language change, Mr. Goldovsky adheres to the composer's intentions. Rosina, for instance, is sung by a mezzo-soprano as Rossini first planned. And she sings his original Lesson Scene, not the customary aria interpolated for benefit for the claque. The orchestra is authentically chamber-size and the theater itself much more intimate than our standard operatic caverns...
...Manhattan production (imaginatively presented without sets or costumes by the Little Orchestra Society), Mignon Dunn, a mezzo-soprano of Dag-mar-like proportions, made a fine, feline mehitabel; diminutive Baritone Jonathan Anderson made the best-voiced cock roach in history, and a vocal quartet called the Four Heatherstones supplied bacchanalian backgrounds. This spring Columbia Records will release an archy and mehitabel album, starring Carol Channing. But Kleinsinger and Darion expect the bulk of their royalties to result from the opera fever that has broken out across the U.S. among amateur and semi-pro groups. University workshops in particular have eagerly...
Milhaud: Poemes Juifs (Irma Kolassi, mezzo-soprano; Andre Collard, piano; London). Eight gently affecting songs written in 1916 and dedicated to the composer's Jewish friends and to their memories. The music contains none of the wailing minors that are usually associated with Jewish music, but uses restraining ostinatos and fresh, pastoral melodies to achieve a typically French effect...
...other performers, notably Mezzo-Soprano Giulietta Simionato, backed her superbly, gave old Norma the kind of urgency it has not known in decades. The orchestra, trained and brilliantly conducted by New York's young (37) Nicola Rescigno, gave every note the vividness of Technicolor. Chicago's top-hatted, diamond-sprinkled audience enveloped Soprano Callas in a hailstorm of applause. To land such a diva was a major operatic coup for Chicago. Maria had left her native Manhattan to live in Greece when she was 13, by 1948 was engaged by La Scala. Married to an Italian millionaire (building...