Word: mirella
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Vibrant and attractive, she could be a successful businesswoman or a television newscaster. But then Mirella Freni opens her mouth to sing. And suddenly there is only the voice-the voice of the world's foremost lyric soprano...
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...
...Llangollen, Wales, where?to their delirious amazement ?they won first prize. Encouraged by Adua, whom he had met and become engaged to during teacher training, Luciano decided to give singing a try. (Another Modena youngster, a childhood friend of Pavarotti's, had already made the same decision: Soprano Mirella Freni...
...Verdi Requiem was a marvel of controlled fervor. Soprano Mirella Freni's concluding Libera me had a rare blend of sweetness and power. The Brahms Requiem seemed cut from velvet rather than the usual broadcloth. Karajan's reading was a subdued rumination, a realization of the deeply personal utterance the composer drew from the Lutheran Bible. In the elegiac "And ye now therefore have sorrow," Soprano Leontyne Price seemed to distill grief and comfort into a burnished flow of melody...
...once seems apt. Among the women, British Soprano Margaret Price sang the Countess with an appealingly fresh vocal bloom and a masterly control of the Mozartean style. From New York's Frederica von Stade came a Cherubino of distilled soprano beauty and ebullient range of boyish emotion. Soprano Mirella Freni remains the best Susanna of the day. Belgium's José Van Dam is a handsome, intelligent, rich-voiced Figaro. Gabriel Bacquier's Count Almaviva just gets better with the years...