Elizabeth Frutal is singing Saariaho's Émilie this summer at at the Lincoln Center Festival.
We can hear Karita Mattila in the same role:
Anoush is kind of the *national* opera in Armenia. It was written by Armen Tigranian, based on a work by the same name of the Armenian poet Hovhannes Tumanyan. It was premiered in the 1930s at the Armenian National Opera Theater, where is performed regularly.
The plot is a simple one about love, violence and death in a triangle of a peasant girl, a shepherd and the girl's brother. There are plenty of traditional Armenian melodies and flavour.
Elizabeth Frutal is singing Saariaho's Émilie this summer at at the Lincoln Center Festival.
We can hear Karita Mattila in the same role:
La Fanciulla del West has never been the most popular Puccini's opera, and it's not recorded often, a far cry from the big numbers of recordings of La Bohème, Butterfly or Tosca.
However, in 1958 both EMI and Decca decided to record the opera, in stereo. The Decca version was released with an spectacular cast of Renata Tebaldi (Minnie), Mario del Monaco (Dick Johnson) and Cornell MacNeil (Jack Rance).
EMI has also some big plans. They wanted to cast Maria Callas, the young Franco Corelli and the veteran baritone Tito Gobbi, with the orchestra and chorus of the Teatro all Scala of Milan, under the direction of Lovro von Matacic.
However, in the end, only la Scala and von Matacic would be available, and while the replacement for Maria Callas was indeed very good (Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson), there were two unknows for Dick Johnson and Jack Rance: João Gibin and Andrea Mongelli.
... and, you know, it wasn't such a bad recording, after all!. I do think Gibin was a suitable Johnson for such a steely Minnie, let's hear a couple of youtubes:
Teresa Saporiti was an Italian soprano, the creator of the role of Mozart's Donna Anna. She probably holds the record for the longest living soprano, having died at the mature age of 106.
Who knows?, perhaps Magda Olivero will beat that record. She is 102 now... She was still singing a few years ago!
A couple of versions of "La Fauvette", from Grétry's Zemire et Azor, a typical showpiece for soprano coloratura, performed by two of the most recognized singers of this fach.
Amelita Galli-Curci, in 1927:
Lily Pons, in 1949:
An interesting pairing in Long Beach Opera: Martinu's Les larmes du couteau,
and Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias,
Debut of Gregory Kunde in the role of Riccardo (Ballo):
Il Trovatore, Le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, June 2012. Stage director Dmitri Tcherniakov
I would write that it's young di Stefano there but you'll surely hear that his voice is young in this recording, ver insteresting to hear him back in 40's:
The countertenor Marco Lazzara singing Bellini:
Arguably, the best ever vocal rendition of "Ella giammai m'amo"
This is the wonderful quintet "To leave, to break", from Vanessa, by Samuel Barber, in its more beautiful version:
Karen Foster - Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde
Production from 2012 in Oslo.
The Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov wrote Layla and Majnun in 1908:
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