Word: sopranos
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...Bess and Serena. Both are fine, but it is the first-night cast that will be especially remembered. Tall, willowy, insinuating Clamma Dale, a Juilliard School graduate who made her debut with the New York City Opera last fall, is a marvelous Bess. At 28 she has a luscious soprano voice that has a little bit of the young Leontyne Price in it and soon ought to be just right for Verdi and Puccini...
...Mozart scored it. Venetian operas now returning to the international repertory were first revived here only a decade ago under the direction of Musicologist Raymond Leppard. Glyndebourne's current showpieces are the neglected conversational operas of Richard Strauss, Capriccio and Intermezzo. They were staged for the lustrous Swedish Soprano Elisabeth Soderstrom under Administrator Moran Caplat's dictum of "hiring people we know and exploiting them at what they want to do." To succeed retiring Musical Director John Pritchard, Glyndebourne is bringing in Conductor Bernard Haitink. His crisp baton imparts a discipline to this year's production...
Died. Elisabeth Rethberg, 81, top Metropolitan Opera soprano for two decades; in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. Blonde, blue-eyed and almost fearsomely robust, German-born Rethberg tried out at the Met in 1922 and stayed for 20 years, drawing raves with a clear, effortlessly powerful voice that made her a standout in an era of great Met sopranos, including Kirsten Flagstad and Lotte Lehmann. She also brought a lively offstage presence to U.S. opera-once, during a tour with Met Basso Ezio Pinza, she collected not only bouquets but also a $250,000 suit from Pinza's wife charging alienation...
...score is filled with mellow waltzes and Hungarian folk tunes, complete with mandolins and castanets. The trap for a choreographer lies in Lehar's melodies, which enhance the voice like exquisite garments that are no longer made. No steps danced to Vilia are satisfying, because memory hears a soprano singing...
Died. Dame Maggie Teyte, 88, petite red-haired English soprano who excelled in French art songs and opera; in London. In 1908 Claude Debussy coached her for her title role in his Pelleas and Melisande, which she was still singing at the age of 60. Her clear, controlled voice was not considered robust enough for the Metropolitan Opera, but she sang in smaller houses in the U.S., and her recordings of turn-of-the-century French songs by Debussy, Berlioz, Ravel and Faure are still rare collectors' items...