Word: thebom
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress (Hilde Gueden, Blanche Thebom, Eugene Conley, Mack Harrell; Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra conducted by the composer; Columbia, 3 LPs). When this three-act opera had its first U.S. performances last season (TIME. Feb. 23), audiences had difficulty with its baroque mannerisms and supercilious satire. Without distractions to the eye, this excellent recording allows the listener to sit back and select his pleasures: some melodious arias, some fine choruses, and some of the world's most inventive orchestration...
Metropolitan Opera (Sat. 2 p.m., ABC). Boris Godunov (in English), with George London and Blanche Thebom...
...Says Thebom: "Most composers, and that includes the ones who are considered to write very well for the voice, make demands upon singers that are impossible." This time she was in on composition's ground floor. She corresponded steadily with Krenek, working over many details of vocal usage. In general, the Thebom-Krenek collaboration put lyrical passages in the low range, declamatory ones in the middle and dramatic outbursts up high. Now she thinks Medea sings as well as any concert work she knows...
Since her debut at the Met (TIME, Feb. 12, 1945), Blanche Thebom has handled her career just as thoughtfully. No longer does she spend all her time at the Met in the heavy-set roles, traditionally doled out to mezzos, e.g., Brangaene and other secondary parts in Wagner operas, Amneris in Aïda. Last season, as the Met's English-language repertory grew, she turned comedienne, won all-out approval for her beautiful-but-dumb Dorabella in Cosï Fan Tutte. This year, she went still further afield, took on the bearded lady in Stravinsky's Rake...
Conscious of the debt she owes the music-loving patrons who took her out of a secretary's chair in Canton, Ohio and paid for her musical training, Thebom has set up a fund to help other singers on their way. Before she passes out any cash, she tries to make sure of one thing: the aspiring singers must be as indomitably set on success as Blanche...