soaring instruments
Here’s the solution to the Elfte Brautnacht! vocal ID quiz:
Congratulations to S.L., who was first with the correct answers.
La Cieca will admit that the snippet of Mary Costa included in the quiz catches this lovely soprano in something less than her best form. So let’s hear Miss Costa on a better day, as Rosalinda in a performance from 1967.
If Dame Gwyneth had been used on the Sawallisch FRAU, well, let’s just say I am swooning at the thought. That is a lost opportunity if ever there were one.
And I love that Vienna Dalibor, with the Rysanek sisters banging out successive full-voiced high Bs in the first act. Very exciting.
I was an as of yet uninterested first timer, started 20 years later in 1999, in Dallas:
Boheme Hong, Leech Mills
Sam/Dal Redmon, Baker
Clem/Tito Maguire, vonStade, Jepson, RCroft
Walkure Charbonnet, Ginzer, Morris, Forbis
Fledermaus Esperian, Grissom, Guzman, Gilfrey, Welborn
Fledermaus Lott, REvans, Castle, Allen, Bottone (CHICAGO)
CockyK- I’m only 5 years older than you but was lucky enough to get into opera young enough to see some really special singers at CG. Janowitz as Ariadne, Cotrubas as Violetta and Tatyana, Freni as Tatyana, Randova as the Kostelnicka, Ricciarelli and Baltsa in Don Carlo, Walter Berry in Cosi…
My big regret was giving up my ticket to see Popp as Arabella. I never saw her in opera but did see her do Frauenliebe und Leben at the Wigmore Hall.
Krunoslav would have something to say about that second Fledermaus, High C’s!
what would Krunoslav have to say??? Im sure you can tell us.
If its that Rebecca Evans was freaking delightful, that is correct…
Yes, what a pity it wasn’t Dame G on the Sawallisch set – orchestrally it’s much the best of the pack, and the sound is as transparent as WS’s conducting, but it’s let down by Vinzing and Muff (a very funny Ochs and Waldner, by the way).
For the record, I came into live opera – after a few Coli experiences with singers a certain man of the cloth would justifiably mock – via Joanie (remember the box of eggs?) Unfortunately Maria Stuarda made me see that her glory and the rep she sang didn’t quite match up, so I was off to hear Behrens in Salome and realised that was where my heart really rested. Now I’ll listen to a really artistic singer like Dessay or Miricioiu in duff-as-old-Donizetti with pleasure.
Freni was still around then but I can’t believe the Verdi roster for Karajan which included her, Carreras, Baltsa, Cappucilli, Raimondi, Domingo etc, and which needless to say I never experienced in the flesh, has ever been surpassed. I have great hopes for Harteros and Kaufman, though, and Gheorghiu on a really good night – that hasn’t happened for me since La Rondine, pure star charisma – can (could?) be something.
Agreed, CK, Brewer is almost Margaret Price, but not quite. Maybe they shouldn’t be compared. Christine’s Isolde, done an act a week/month at the Barbican, was unforgettable but doesn’t quite translate to CD. I don’t think Dame G ever did, quite, survive the leap from that weird built-in luminescence you got live to the cordons of recording.
Freni, like Ricciarelli, is someone who was asked by Karajan to sing parts for which her voice really wasn’t suited. She gets through Aida and Don Carlo through sheer weight of artistry, but for the roster to be ‘unsurpassed’ he would have needed a true lirico-spinto in the parts.
I’m coming over all nostalgic at these postings; my operatic early years were late 70′s and early 80′s, and would add to the great experiences of meremarie and armerj, most of which I witnessed, with…Werther with Von Stade and Carerras, Boccanegra with Kiri and Milnes, Fanciulla with Neblett and Domingo, Lohengrin with Kollo and Randova, Grimes with Vickers. Popp and Bailey (replacing Sotin) in Meistersinger. And of course, Gwyneth as Brunnhilde – the cast also had Linda Esther Gray as Sieglinde and Anne Evans as Freia and Gutrune; I am quite certain that Gwyneth sang Sieglinde in one of the cycles, with Lindholm as Brunnhilde. Gwyneth was quite uneven until Gotterdammerung, where she was astounding – her singing at the end of act two was almost animal-like, and I still get a lump in my throat thinking about it.
Love that “weird built-in luminescence” remark
Had no idea that the secret of success was a battery charger
Why is there a Google ad for a Miley Cyrus quiz right below this erudite correspondence? Surely not a late entry in the Helena stakes?