Frankly, the response to the Elektra quiz was uneven. La Cieca will explain after the jump.

For the first time in parterre history, there was no clear winner of one of La Cieca’s quizzes: certainly no one got all the voices identified correctly, and there were only a few attempts at a complete list, with some very good guesses but (so far as your doyenne could tell) not one that passed the 50% mark. So, with your permission, La Cieca is going to reserve awarding the Solti Strauss set for a later date and another quiz.

For the record, here are the 13 Mycenaean princesses:

  1. Lisbeth Balslev
  2. Katarina Dalayman
  3. Rose Pauly
  4. Christine Goerke
  5. Ursula Schroder-Feinen
  6. Inge Borkh
  7. Gerda Lammers (From a MET pirate – not her famous CG/Kempe performance)
  8. Evelyn Herlitzius
  9. Gertrude Kappel (From the MET premiere in ’32 and the oldest extant MET broadcast)
  10. Olivia Stapp
  11. Rita Hunter
  12. Gertrud Grob-Prandl
  13. Ute Vinzing

Better luck next time, cher public, and we’ll have another vocal ID quiz to test your mettle very soon!

La Cieca

James Jorden (who wrote under the names "La Cieca" and "Our Own JJ") was the founder and editor of parterre box. During his 20 year career as an opera critic he wrote for the New York Times, Opera, Gay City News, Opera Now, Musical America and the New York Post. He also raised his voice in punditry on National Public Radio. From time to time he directed opera, including three unsuccessful productions of Don Giovanni. He also contributed a regular column on opera for the New York Observer. James died in October 2023.

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