Word: mezzos
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...forge a musical language appropriate to the task. A prime mover in the ragtime revival of the 1960s, he has long been up to his ears in vernacular music, lavishly stirring it into his classical compositions (McTeague, Songs of Innocence and Experience) and accompanying his wife, the mezzo-soprano Joan Morris, in delectable recitals of popular song (they do everything from Sondheim to Shine On, Harvest Moon...
MOST GRACEFUL EXIT Mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade (8), at Sierra Nevada College, who sang Aaron Copeland's Simple Gifts...
Opera ultimately belongs to the singers, however, and La Traviata was no exception. All the performers, leads and chorus alike, showed remarkable vocal prowess and passion, and among the minor characters mezzo-soprano Gale Fuller's charming and coquettish Flora Bervoix (a courtesan whose wardrobe is far more scandalous than that of Violetta) was especially memorable and a well-needed break from the heavy tragedy of the rest of the opera...
...there another art form that attracts so many sublime sufferers and so many nuts?" asks Manuella Hoelterhoff in her new book Cinderella & Company: Backstage at the Opera with Cecilia Bartoli. The narrative, loosely based on a two-year period in the life of the world famous mezzo-soprano, provides a way for the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hoelterhoff to expose all the craziness of the opera world. Her readable anecdotes of eccentric divas, push managers and overweight sopranos give a "behind-the-scenes" picture of opera that will delight everyone from the hard-core opera buffs who live for this...
...over a lifetime of being a devoted (obsessive?) opera fan and a cultural critic for the Wall Street Journal. Although Bartoli's seductive portrait is emblazoned on the cover and her name is included in the title, Bartoli remains elusive in the narrative. Hoelterhoff followed the shy off-stage mezzo on and off from 1995 to 1997 and attempted to capture her "rags to riches" story by making a parallel between Bartoli and her signature role as Cinderella in Rossini's Cenerentola. Bartoli's story, however, is quickly overshadowed and nearly buried by the more colorful personalities that she encounters...