Word: stignani
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Verdi: Aïda (Beniamino Gigli, tenor; Maria Caniglia, soprano; Ebe Stignani, mezzo-soprano; Gino Bechi, baritone; Italo Tajo, bass, and others with the Rome Opera Orchestra and chorus, Tullio Serafin conducting; Victor, 40 sides). With such a cast, Aïda should have come off brilliantly; instead, it just barely comes off, with some good singing (Ebe Stignani's) and some bad (e.g., Gigli's Celeste Aïda is painful). Recording: fair...
Verdi: La Forza del Destine (Maria Caniglia, soprano; Ebe Stignani, mezzo-soprano; Galliano Masini, tenor; Tancredi Pasero, bass; Carlo Tagliabue, baritone, and others with the EIAR Symphony Orchestra and chorus, Gino Marinuzzi conducting; Cetra-Soria, 36 sides). Some of the singers made Verdi's less worthy opera sound far better than the Aïda. Recording: good...
When plump little Italian Mezzo-Soprano Ebe Stignani walked onstage for her New York debut, she got an unexpected ovation. It overwhelmed her so much she could hardly get through her first group of Handel and Vivaldi songs. "I can't sing when I am emotional," she said. But when she got her own emotions under control, her listeners began to lose theirs. A singer in the great bel canto tradition, she was as golden at the top of her voice as at the bottom, and as velvety in her ringing forte as in her piano. And she could...
...Stignani is a gay little woman who admits to being "only as old as I look" (early fortyish). The night after her concert last week, she went to dinner with Arturo Toscanini, who had listened in frowning silence to her voice when she was 20, then next day sent her a contract to sing at Milan's La Scala. At dinner, says Ebe, "Maestro was in a reminiscing mood, but he only covered the period 1898 to 1913-not my time...
Mozart: Requiem (Pia Tassinari, Ebe Stignani, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Italo Tajo; orchestra and chorus of the E.I.A.R., Victor de Sabata conducting; Cetra-Soria, 16 sides). Mozart began writing this masterpiece in the last few months of his life, for another's memorial. Finished by his pupil Sussmayer, it has since served well as Mozart's own memorial. This is a recording of the magnificent performance in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome on the 150th anniversary of his death (1941). Recording: good...