Word: puccini
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...Russian bear hug as he dashed off two movements of a Haydn concerto. Violinists Itzhak Perlman and Isaac Stern were on hand too, the picture of collegial conviviality in a Vivaldi double concerto. Soprano Leontyne Price, the diva di tutte le dive, sang arias by Verdi, Richard Strauss and Puccini with resplendent warmth and freshness. And there was Pianist Rudolf Serkin, happily singing along as he performed in Beethoven's Choral Fantasy. At the end, Isaac Stern struck up Happy Birthday, and 2,600 fashionably dressed folk in Symphony Hall joined...
...first Peabody-Mason concert (last Sunday afternoon) presented the Emerson string quartet--an award-winning group that in five years has become one of the world's leading string quartets--playing a program of Beethoven, Puccini, Stravinsky, and Debussy. Later concerts in this six-part series will feature performances by the New York Vocal Arts Ensemble, pianists Michael Borskin, Noel Lee, and Andrew Rangell, and the tenor Rolf Bjorling...
...list of the great 20th century operas would have to start with Puccini's Turandot and Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, which summed up, respectively, the Italian and German romantic traditions. It would also include Debussy's Petteas et Melisande, the French composer's 1902 masterpiece of Gallic allusion and understatement; Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, the most important work to enter the international repertory since World War II; and Alban Berg's twin monuments - Wozzeck, the seminal opera of our time, and Lulu, the apotheosis of the twelve-tone system...
...when many singers stretch their repertories by taking on roles unsuited to their voices and thus hasten the end of their careers, the Italian-born Freni has remained close to her lyric roots. She comes from the world of the poor, consumptive Mimi in Puccini's La Bohème and the sparkling, scheming Susanna in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Despite taking on some distinctly heavier parts, mostly Verdi heroines, in recent years-Aida, Desdemona in Otello and Elisabeth in Don Carlos-she is still rightly regarded as the finest Mimi and Susanna around. "The dramatic...
...Freni recalls: "When I was 10½, my uncle remembered that I could do this, and he put on the record for my father. He said, 'Please, Mirella,' and they discovered I had the voice." Two years later, she won a national competition with her singing of Puccini's Un bel di. One of the judges, Tenor Beniamino Gigli, advised her not to rush her career. Said Gigli: "You are young. Don't force your voice." Wisely, she waited until 1955 to make her formal debut...