Word: sopranoes
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...somber judgment scene from Aida unfolds. Portraying the Egyptian princess Amneris is a singer identified in the program as "Carmelita Della Vaca- Browne," a burly Puerto Rican ex-soprano whose voice (since she gave birth to triplets) has darkened to a take-no-prisoners mezzo. In the role of the doomed warrior Radames, all-American tenor "Tex Stolto" can't seem to resist handing out 8-by-10 glossies of himself. And as Ramfis, the high priest, Russian bass "Boris Pistoff" doffs his headdress to reveal himself as a Conehead...
This is Aida? Well, yes -- as staged by a New York-based all-male company called La Gran Scena. This rare -- and rarefied -- troupe recognizes that opera thrives on the tension between the sublime and the silly. After all, when a 200-lb. soprano trips down the castle steps trilling like a 1-lb. canary in the mad scene in Lucia di Lammermoor, should one weep at her character's insanity or howl at the absurdity? La Gran Scena's answer is: both. As they see it, loving opera and laughing at it are one and the same thing...
...Sepulce scene from Manon, a passionate encounter between lovers in a monastery, brings on the prima donna "Vera Galupe-Borszkh," a.k.a. "La Dementia." Wearing a colossal red fright wig and more lipstick than Lucille Ball, she commands the stage like Bette Midler on Benzedrine, casting her stratospheric soprano to the bleachers as it veers between ear-splitting fortissimos and never-ending pianissimos...
...Close's successor in L.A., only to be fired when Lloyd Webber decided her voice was not up to the part; her $6 million lawsuit is pending. Close, her mobile face and twitching hands working overtime, captures all the character's narcissistic neuroticism, and she sings in a clear soprano that, if unschooled, is nevertheless a welcome relief from LuPone's raw edge...
...benefit the art, but the TV age has brought a new way to become an opera star fast: get on the box. In 1986 mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli jump- started a huge international career by singing an aria on an Italian variety show. She was 19. Now Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, 29, is taking the opera world by storm. His career, which is only four years old, began when he placed second in the Cardiff Singer of the World competition, an event in which both the heats and the finals are televised. Videocassettes flew around Europe, and the phone...