With Tancredi, written while still a very young man, Rossini is able to transmit in music the message of Tancrède, and even to go beyond Voltaire's original: candor, purity, valour, the willing sacrifice of a hero, ... an ideal, a character that transcends reality. Capable of love more as an abstract emotion, than as a carnal instinct.
In this youtube we can listen to Marilyn Horne as Tancredi, and Enedina Lloris as Amenaide, in a pleasant production at Liceu, Barcelona, back in 1989:
Haha, this is hilarious. Not only the broken English he speaks but his extremely short answers, "all Verdi's operas" <silence> ...
And that strange impression that he had his answers written down and just did read them for this recording.
"My favorit part are to Andrea Chenier because itise romanticly"
Enjoy two clips from (relatively) recent productions of L'elisir d'Amore with Giuseppe Filianoti as Nemorino and really great singers in secondary roles:
Rosa Raisa had a big sized voice, one of the biggest ever by a soprano, and was able to sing up to D5 with ease. She was a great artist, and was absolutely revered at Chicago, where she was the best paid opera singer.
Unfortunately, this big voice of hers was not captured well on record, with the technology of the early 20th century (she was said to cry while listening to some of those recordings). However, we can hear a couple of very good renditions of her signature role, Aida:
Polish alto Ewa Podles has always received mixed reviews. On one side, there have been objections to the homogeneity of her voice... I think this is unfair. When you are singing more than three octaves, it's almost impossible to get a fully homogeneous voice.
On the other hand, she has also been accused of artificially darkening her low notes, and make them sound louder. There is some truth to this claim.
However, I remember one night many years ago, still in the 20th century, when she did just marvelous singing in Madrid, performing Tancredi. Her best role in my view, along with this Arsace:
As we would discuss soon, there is not only zarzuela in Spain, but also in many Latin America countries.
One of them is Cuba. From the zarzuela by Jorge Lecuona, Rosa la China, this is a nice romanza sung by the famous Cuban soprano Hortensia Coalla:
Last edited by Schigolch; January 22nd, 2012 at 09:53 AM.
Claudia Muzio, La Divina, was adored in Buenos Aires, and in the big Opera House there, Teatro Colón.
We can read this from "El Teatro Colón de Buenos Aires: 1908-2008", by Mr. Blas Matamoro:
If we talkk about divas, the older subscribers simply said: "Claudia", and we all knew they were just referring, like she was a member of the family, to Muzio.
No Raisa, Leider, Nilsson, Tebaldi, Callas, Milanov, Cigna, Caniglia... No: Claudia. And old friend told me: "When Claudia died in the Fourth Act of Traviata, the smallest part of her chemise died with her". And then my mother: "Claudia, in the Third Act of La Bohème, under the snow, made you feel so cold"
Once, queuing to buy a ticket, an unknown man passed besides us. Someone murmured; "This man watched Claudia perform". To me, he became The Man that Watched Claudia Perform.
In the opening evening of Teatro Colón's 1986 season, there was a homage to Muzio, in the fiftieth anniversary of her death. All the lights of the big theather were out, and from the stage came the voice of Claudia Muzio singing this:
Anne of Green Gables thanked for this post
Today, Alexander Serov is best remembered outside Russia for his opera Judith.
Based on the Old Testament story of the Jewish heroine that saved her people by beheading Holofernes, the general of King Nebuchadnezzar, this was a very popular work since the 1860s, and the Tsar himself granted Serov a royal pension.
Natalija Ermolenko was one of the biggest stars of the Russian operatic stage in the first decades of the 20th century. Arguably her most succesful roles was precisely Judith. We can hear Natalija singing an aria from Judith in 1909:
However, arguably the best piece from the opera is this beautiful aria by Bogoas, the harem's keeper, that we can hear in the unforgettable voice of Sergei Lemeshev:
Don Carlo
American composer Edward J. Collins, once an assistant conductor at the Bayreuth's Festival before the Great War, wrote only one opera, Daughter of the South, completed in 1939, about the love story of a Southern girl, living in a plantation of all places, and a Northern guy, at the times of the Civil War.
The plot won't be a candidate for an Originality Award, but the music is considerably better, comparable at his best to Charles Ives' or Gershwin's. Starting from a fragmented score, composer Daron Hagen recreated the one act opera.
Jewish singer Joseph Schmidt was of diminutive stature, he was scarcely 150 centimeters tall. Due to this, it was very difficult for him to enjoy a singing career on the stage, but he was very succesful in radio broadcasts, and also in movies, were his shortness could be better addressed than in live theater.
His was an excellent tenor voice, with limpid top notes and easy coloratura.
He was pursued by the Nazis, and died at a refugee camp in Switzerland, still only 38 years old.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold's last work for the stage was not an opera, but an operetta.
In 1954, three years before his death, there was the German premiere of Die stumme Serenade. This is not the best Korngold, not even a great Korngold, but it's a very nice piece nonetheless. Like all the other works written by the late Korngold, this was a big failure. The Austrian composer will die convinced that his music was doomed to be forgotten. Fortunately, he was very wrong:
Gaetano Latilla was an Italian composer of the 18th century. Born at Bari, he was the uncle of the more famous Niccolò Piccinni, and the author of almost fifty operas.
His major successes were in the field of opera buffa, like in this La finta cameriera, based on a libretto by Giovanni Barloccio, of which we can hear this nice aria "Agitato il mio cor si confonde", sung by Roberta Invernizzi:
This gem has less than 1000 views so I assume some of you could not see it. Well, do it now, you won't regret:
I wish Carreras made more recordings of earlier XIXth century operas. But wait, I still didn't listen to Lucrezia Borgia with him so why complain.
Though Nicolae Bretan's operas were written in the 20th century (he was born in Romania, the year 1887), his soul and his compositions were that of a 19th century man.
Some of those operas, notably the first two, Luceafarul and Golem Lázadása are quite nice to the ear, concentrating basically on singing and melody. We can hear the prelude to Lueceafarul:
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