parterre box

15 comments

• celticpriestess says:

  Oh, my! This is the first I’d heard of the news. I’m sorry to hear she’s gone, but I’m glad she had such a long life and distinguished career. Farewell, Mme. Bampton!

  on August 23, 2007 at 11:10 PM
• ljc says:

  Bampton gone at age 99, and Stich-Randall recently gone. Is there anyone left who worked with Toscanini? Was Evita in the presidential box in 48 for the Bampton, Svanholm, Kleiber performance?

  on August 23, 2007 at 11:24 PM
• Krunoslav says:

  Of the recorded Toscanini legacy, Frank Guarrera, Toscanini’s Ford, is still with us, as is Nan Merriman, his Meg, Emilia and Maddalena (and Act II Orfeo), Cesare Siepi ( Verdi REQUIEM) and, I believe, Claramae Turner (Ulrica).

  Anyone know about Virginia Haskins, the Oscar? Or Barbara Gibson, the Ombra Felice?

  Also, Guarrera, Giulietta Simionato and Siepi sang under Toscanini for the Boito Memorial concerts.

  on August 24, 2007 at 12:20 AM
• Doug says:

  NPR said Bampton was the first American to sing Kundry at the Met. Curious about the semantics of that … was there another American Kundry before her elsewhere? A great statistic, either way. I’ve always loved her….

  on August 24, 2007 at 2:00 AM
• Miss Johnson From London says:

  NPR’s fact checkers need a slap on the wrist for claiming Bampton was
  the first American to sing Kundry
  at the Met. Nordica sang Kundry there almost a decade before the First World War. Nordica was born in Maine. Maybe NPR thinks Maine is part of Canada…

  on August 24, 2007 at 8:14 AM
• Krunoslav says:

  Someone pointed out on Opera-L that there was yet another American Kundry befor her at the Met, Marion Weed.

  And Edyth Walker, Irene Dalis’ teacher, sang Kundry at Bayreuth.

  on August 24, 2007 at 10:09 AM
• alex says:

  Mmm. I remember first hearing her as Donna Anna on that incredibly scratchy Don Giovanni from the Met from way before my lifetime.

  I also remember digging up some web-clips of her singing Elisabeth’s Prayer. *sigh* I really was drawn to her voice for quite some time.

  Thanks for posting the Daphne. It’s kind of rewhetted my appetite to get more sets now. EE

  on August 24, 2007 at 11:30 AM
• ljc says:

  Kundry was a specialty of Fremstad at the Met a century ago.

  on August 24, 2007 at 12:38 PM
• celticpriestess says:

  I just checked the Met database. Marion Weed first sang Kundry in a Met dress rehearsal on December 22, 1903. Weed was not Kundry in the first actual Met performance of Parsifal on December 24, 1903.
  That job went to Milka Ternina. That first staged Met performance, of course, was against the wishes of the Wagner family, and was the first staged performance outside Bayreuth. (BTW, Weed did her first staged Met Kundry on January 4th, 1904, nearly 30 years before Rose Bampton sang the part there.) And, as other posters have pointed out, there were several other American Kundrys between the 1903-04 season and Bampton’s 1933 appearance in the role. Makes me think of something here at the radio station–as my boss looked up a fact on some composer before going on the air, he sighed, “I wonder if anyone notices that we try to get this s*** right!” Obviously, folks here on parterre.com DO notice such things, and that’s great! I wish NPR could/would draw on the great fund of knowledge among our posters!

  on August 24, 2007 at 4:27 PM
• Krunoslav says:

  I never said, nor did anyione else, that Weed was the first Met Kundry, just that she, like Nordica and ( if we consider her American) Fremstad sang Kundry at the Met before Bampton did– starting in 1943, btw, not 1933.

  However, after those initial three, there were no more American Kundrys at the Met before Bampton. (Easton, who did the role in 1920-25 may have obtained citizenship, but surely she can be called a really GOOD British singer.) Varnay ( another Swedish-born American) followed in 1944, and Traubel in 1950 (two performances only).

  on August 24, 2007 at 11:42 PM