Word: plishka
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...accounted for the Met's reluctance to take him on? Questions of casting and contracts fascinate and frustrate opera fans, who are usually well aware of hot new reputations in Europe. One reason may be that the company already had two fine American basses in James Morris and Paul Plishka; another is that Artistic Director James Levine tends to favor his own discoveries. There was also the perceived stigma of the City Opera; the two companies may be geographical neighbors, but they are artistic strangers. "There were lots of theories," notes Ramey. "One of them was that I was such...
...opening-night audience greeted all this with a mixed but emphatic response. There were cheers for the buoyant conducting of James Levine and the splendid ensemble of Soprano Carol Neblett Tenor William Lewis, Bass-Baritone José van Dam and Bass Paul Plishka. The applause for Ponnelle was mixed with full-throated booing sounds, heard often enough on the Continent but rarely at the Met. New York audiences like their Wagner to be conventional...
Basso Profundo. Save for Tenor Harry Theyard's dry-sounding, unathletic Pretender, the cast is just right. Mignon Dunn as Princess Marina is cunningly believable as an ambitious conspirator. Paul Plishka's Pimen is delivered with a basso profundo of enough tensile magnificence to signal a potential Boris. Right now, though, the role is the hot property of Finland's Martti Talvela, a huge (6 ft. 7 in., 260 Ibs.), nimble, running tackle of a man with an obsessed, Orson Wellesian face. At 39 he has a voice that may lack the steely edge of, say, Chaliapin...
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