Word: verdis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...opera performed at the Metropolitan that evening was Verdi's Falstaff, with an unknown "cover" singer filling in for the ailing Spanish Baritone Vincente Bal-lester in the role of the wealthy burgher Ford. In the second act Ford sang his famous monologue E sogne? a realta? and shortly made his exit. As the orchestra launched into the music of the act's second scene, the audience began chanting an unfamiliar name: "Tibbett! Tibbett! Tib-bett!" Conductor Tullio Serafin waved his orchestra to silence and through the gold curtain stepped a slim young man with a putty-shaped...
...often reverts to an almost 19th-century style. Yet the music is no hodge-podge; everything works, and everything is appropriate. It is heartening to find a composer willing to write for the voice as though it were something besides an instrument. Vocally, the score is in the Verdi-Puccini tradition; orchestrally, it recalls most frequently the sonorities of Richard Strauss, especially of Rosenkavalier. Giannini did not shy away from penning a beautiful, lush love duet for each pair of lovers. The first act has a fugal trio that can take its place with the finale fugue in Verdi...
...Edinburgh (Aug. 21-Sept. 10). Britain's largest festival combines flamboyance and elegance with serious if unadventurous endeavor-quantities of Brahms, Beethoven, Verdi and Mozart, with two premieres: William Walton's Second Symphony, Humphrey Searle's Third Symphony...
...drawn applause at La Scala in years), got many more ovations as she ranged effortlessly from finespun pianissimos to brilliantly ringing fortes. "Brava, Leonessa!" cried someone in the audience, while a second voice corrected: "She is more like a panther than a lioness." Said one critic: "Our great Verdi would have found her the ideal Aïda." When another critic regretted that Soprano Price's color might keep her from other parts, a Scala official promised that there would be no color bar: "The public will have to get used to it. If she sings Butterfly and anybody...
...Included are the Overture to Mozart's The Magic Flute (Nov. 5, 1947): the Finale to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (March 27, 1952); the Brindisi, or drinking song from Act I of Verdi's La Traviata (Nov. 28, 1946); and assorted other excerpts from Acts I and II of Traviata (Nov. 28, Nov. 30, 1946). Released by the conductor's son Walter, the disk is not available in record stores, can be bought only with a contribution (minimum: $25) to the Musicians Foundation, Inc., 131 Riverside Drive, New York City 24-a charitable organization to which...