Microgroovy
That utterly addictive web presence Vinyl Divas has just updated their fascinating, wide-ranging collection of operatic LP covers with high-quality scans of albums featuring every opera lady you’ve ever heard of (and more than a few you haven’t.)
The latest set runs the gamut from Alla Ablaberdyeva (performing Bach, Purcell and Handel with the assistance of the intensely bearded Alexander Fiseisky and his massive organ) to Virginia Zeani (rocking a hot-pink cocktail dress and Jackie Kennedy flip for a Verdi/Puccini recital.)
UPDATE: Although the Vinyl Divas site does not include any sound clips to complement the dizzying collection of album covers, La Cieca thought you might enjoy a sampling of late ’60s crossover at its best. Ferocious Felicia Weathers is heard in a psychedelic single:
Molnar-Talajic was THE GREATEST!!!!!!!!!!!! I first heard her in Vienna in Ballo and Trovatore — glorious, enormous voice, fabulous pianissimo and fat lady dignity. But she seemed to have no career. Then about five years later I was at the Caballe Aida (so announced) at the Met, it was Guild Benefit — not Caballe. Instead, Molnar — it was an unforgettable night with people screaming after Ritorna Vincitor and from then on. Some asshole (I suspect I know who it was) was running around like a rat shrieking, “not since Zinka”. Not since Zinka, my ass. Zinka couldn’t begin to sing in tune. Molnar was perfect — and that Nile Scene is the greatest I have ever seen — a Patria mia, slow, sad, floaty with a high C so soft, long held and glowing, the audience gasped (then screamed). The beginning of O terra addio was pretty much the same. I think it was the greatest wall to wall Aida ever (yes Lee was fantastic in the last two acts and could keep doing it, but she didn’t dominate ensembles, Molnar just let loose with this huge, ripe sound, and Lee didn’t really do a very great Ritorna, Molnar did. The only one I think got close was the greatest Toni Starr — who didn’t have Molnar’s sweetness (of manner or sound) but emitted WAVES of glorious sound all the way through). Molnar got a couple more Aidas the next season where she wasn’t quite as good, then nothing. I heard later that she hated the operatic world and simply wanted to live with her husband.
The only singer remotely like her was the greatest Shroeder-Feinen — the Elektra with Maazel is the most amazing Elektra I ever heard (the Nilsson miracle was of course that she could flood it out night after night, and nail you to the wall at the top) — but Ursula had this glorious sound, round and unique and huge throughout the range, a built in pathos (but immense impact at the snarly moments), this immense top and this beautiful German, it was just incredible. Then there was her Siegfried Brunnhilde at the Met, the best I ever heard for the same reasons, her Walkeure Brunnhilde selections with Mehta and an American bass named Tyl, and (just slightly less good) her Met Elektras (three).
Then she returned as the Dyer’s wife and was nearly booed off the stage — and when Leonie wouldn’t bow without her, they booed Leonie too. And really she was very bad. That was it for her. I think she was selling sausage in the Stuttgart Train Station when she died recently.
Tomato-Sintax was a great singer but never quite recognized as one. I’ll never forget the Elisabetta in San Fran where holding the final B flat forever she v-e-r-y slowly folded over and fell to the floor while Nesterenko looked at her like she was nuts. There was also a Countess in Vienna (Capriccio), which I swear only Phyllis Curtain (no one ever mentions her) got close to, the same week but Tomato really had this special sound. There is a Butterfly recording (with the enormously gifted in a certain region of his body Aragall) that used to be dirt cheap, which is one of the great singing Butterflys.
Before this entry on Vinyl Divas goes into the archive–there is a video on Youtube of the sound track of a live concert in ’66 of Fritz Wunderlich singing a Lehar duet with Ruth-Margret Putz. Some interesting photos of Freddie Wonderful, and Ruth-Margret is not a bad singer. Don’t know how she is rated critically. Can’t help but be interested in her due to her name.
Well, I, for one, love Felicia’s version of Up, Up and Away, and hope that La Cieca might share more of the album with us.
wendell wentworth: I will accept your right to your opinion, but I just relistened 3 times to Up Up and Away, and I just do not like the Weathers version. From being in chatrooms and reading lots of utube comments, it seems some topics just drive people into fury on one side or the other. Callas, W, Hitler, Stalin, Boom goes the Dynamite,the Lebanese pop singer Haifa,and who or what killed Joseph Schmidt. It’s your thing..I can’t tell you who to sock it to.