Word: tenore
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...field of music, the names of Enrico Carusa, the great tenor and Arturo Toscaniui, the conductor of the New York Philharinonic and the NBC Orchestra are known all over the world. Many other Americans with Italian roots have been prominent in art and music circles...
...opening-night audience sat in stunned silence, then broke into shouts of enthusiasm. They called for Composer Floyd and for Director Frank Corsaro. With Baritone Julian Patrick as George, Tenor Robert Moulson as the doomed half-wit Lennie, and Soprano Carol Bayard as the ranch-house temptress who teases Lennie once too often, Of Mice and Men seems uniquely American. Like Steinbeck's depression-depressed characters, Floyd's opera has calluses on its hands and hot blood in its heart. It will probably be around a long time...
...however, Bernstein fell in love with Composer Pietro Mascagni's original score, which calls for much slower tempos than the opera customarily is given. (His performance ran a full ten minutes longer than the normal 70 minutes.) Tension and excitement drained away as Tenor Franco Corelli and Soprano Grace Bumbry (Santuzza) dutifully sacrificed dramatic pacing to accuracy, concentrating on breathing deeply to manage the long phrases...
...free of novelty. His Pagliacci included a dusty road, a gnarled tree, a brilliant sunset and a great deal of lively Method movement. Here, if the pace was present, the voices were lacking. Dynamic Soprano Teresa Stratas fell sick and had to be replaced at the last minute. Veteran Tenor Richard Tucker had neither the warmth nor the fire to create dislike in the audience and then transform it into pity. Only Baritone Sherrill Milnes as the deformed Tonio had the strong, rich reserves of voice and tone that can raise Pagliacci from the deadly...
...Pelleas into a musical affirmation by treating the drama not as a fairy tale but a human story. Thus he brought passion and pain to a work that all too often seems pale. In the famous scene where Melisande (Soprano Elisabeth Soderstrom) looses her hair over the ardent Pelleas (Tenor George Shirley), Boulez whipped the music to a Tristan-like sexual intensity. Then, at the entrance of Melisande's jealous husband Golaud (Baritone Donald McIntyre), he cut through the sensuality with harsh, jabbing chords, tightening the singing until it strained with barely suppressed violence...