Oberon's Grove

Julia Varady ~ Vier Letze Lieder

Julia Varady sings Strauss's Vier Letze Lieder in a 1992 concert with the Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Kurt Masur. Watch and listen here.

Montserrat Caballé: NORMA @ The Bolshoi 1974

A performance of Bellini's NORMA from the Bolshoi in 1974 with Montserrat Caballé, Gianni Raimondi, Bruna Baglioni, and Ivo Vinco. Watch and listen here.

Régine Crespin ~ O ma lyre immortelle

Régine Crespin sings the great final aria from Gounod's rarely-heard opera SAPHO:

Régine Crespin - O ma lyre immortelle ~ SAPHO

"O my immortal lyre,
often when tears I have shed...
My voice has been the portal
thru which my sorrows fled.

In vain now does your sweet murmur
Seek to console me in my sadness
No, you cannot heal this final wound - 
a wound deep in my heart,
Only death can end my despair.

Farewell, flame of the world!
Sink down to the bosom of the sea.
Myself, I shall descend into the depths
to my eternal rest.

Another day, Faone,
will dawn for you.
But you will not think of me
As you watch the sun arise.

Open now, bitter sea,
open now!
I shall sleep forever
beneath the waves."

~ She flings herself into the ocean.

La Sconsolata

The only work Giacomo Puccini (above) is known to have composed for violin and piano, La Sconsolata dates from 1883.

Puccini - La Sconsolata - R Gniewek - R Woitach - 1989

Nadine Sierra @ The Met's At-Home Gala

Nadine Sierra sang Mimi's narrative "Mi chiamano Mimí" from LA BOHEME for the Metropolitan Opera's At-Home Gala on April 25th, 2020. Watch and listen here.

Plinio Clabassi

I only heard the Italian basso Plinio Clabassi live once: in 1968, he sang Elmiro in Rossini's OTELLO when the Rome Opera visited The Met. In my diary, I wrote that "...he made a big impression in a sort role..."

Born in 1919, Clabassi sang in an amateur men's chorus before serving in the military during the Second World War; at that time, he started singing on local radio broadcasts for the RAI. After the war, he began to be invited to sing both opera and concerts at various Italian theatres. His career, which lasted 30 years, eventually took the basso to many European countries, to North and South America, as well as to South Africa and Australia.

Clabassi sang operas in many styles, from Paisiello to Pizzetti, but his concentration was on the works of  Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, and Puccini. His voice had a unique timbre, and he cut a fine figure onstage. Clabassi was married to opera singer Rina Gigli (the daughter of Beniamino Gigli), with whom he appeared on a number of occasions, including a 1966 production of TURANDOT at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples.

Watch the basso as Raimondo in LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, announcing the murder of Lucia's newly-wed husband.

Clabassi appeared on many recordings, both studio and live. Here he is delivering Monterone's curse in RIGOLETTO:

Plinio Clabassi as Monterone ~ RIGOLETTO - with di Stefano and Gobbi

I always loved Clabassi's voice, particularly on the studio recording of GIOCONDA with Zinka Milanov:

Plinio Clabassi - Sì morir ella de'! ~ GIOCONDA

Plinio Clabassi died in 1984. In May 2012, a new theatre in his native city of Sedegliano was named in his honour.

 ~ Oberon

Ruxandra Donose as Adalgisa

Ruxandra Donose is Adalgisa in a production of Bellini's from Las Palmas, 2011. Dimitra Theodossiu is Norma, Fabio Sartori is Pollione, and Carlo Colombara is Oroveso.

Watch and listen here.

Souvenirs from Cardiff ~ Part III

Erin Wall, a native of Calgary, Canada, was a finalist at the 2003 Cardiff Singer of the World competition. She had made her international debut the previous year singing Britten's War Requiem in London. She spent three seasons building repertoire at Lyric Opera of Chicago, and made her Met debut in 2009 as Donna Anna. In 2014, I had the pleasure of hearing her as Strauss's Arabella at The Met.

Erin Wall's repertoire includes Freia, the 3rd Norn, Strauss's Daphne, Marguerite in Faust, Ellen Orford, Chrysothemis, Helena in Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream, Thais, and Mozart's Contessa Almaviva. She does a lot of concert work, most notably the Mahler symphonies 2, 4, and 8, and Strauss's Vier Letze Lieder.

Erin Wall - Vier letzte Lieder ~ Frühling

Counter-tenor Matthias Rexroth was born in Nuremberg and made his debut in Purcell's King Arthur at Stuttgart in 1999. Having won major voice competitions at Barcelona and Vienna, Mr. Rexroth was soon performing Bach and Baroque works all over Europe, and he represented Germany at the 2003 Cardiff Competition. He sang often with conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and also with Riccardo Muti and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. His operatic repertory covers numerous Handel roles and ranges from Monteverdi to Britten.

Watch Mr. Rexroth singing at the the 37th Concurso Francisco Viñas in Barcelona here.

Since 2014, Mr. Rexroth has been professor of voice at the Opera Academy of Warsaw; he also gives masterclasses internationally.

Parts of Ms. Wall's and Mr. Rexroth's 2003 Cardiff performances are heard here:

Cardiff 2003 - Matthias Rexroth - Erin Wall

Bucharest-born Ruxandra Donose came to prominence following an impressive showing at a voice competition at Munich in 1990. She soon joined the opera company at Basel, and - thereafter - the Vienna State Opera. Her international career has since continued apace, and lately she has taken on roles like Kundry and Sieglinde.

Above: Ruxandra Donose as Nicklausse in Contes d'Hoffmann; a Marty Sohl/Met Opera photo

I met Ruxandra in 2004 while I was working at Tower Records; she was singing Nicklausse at The Met and she stopped by at the opera room. We had a lovely chat.

Here's Ruxandra at the 1993 Cardiff competition:

Ruxandra Donose - Allerseelen - Cardiff 1993

And Roger Vignoles is the pianist for Ruxandra's lovely singing of Dalila's seduction aria from a 2014 London recital here.

~ Oberon

Sumi & Dima

Sumi Jo and Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the great father-daughter duet from Verdi's RIGOLETTO, from a concert at Seoul in 2005. Watch and listen here.

Gianni Raimondi

Above: Gianni Raimondi as Rodolfo in LA BOHEME

Tenor Gianni Raimondi was born at Bologna in 1923. He made his operatic debut in 1947 as the Duke in RIGOLETTO and was soon singing in opera houses throughout Italy. His career expanded to Nice, Marseille, Monte Carlo, Paris, London...

...and La Scala, where, in 1956, Mr. Raimondi made his debut in Luchino Visconti now-legendary production of LA TRAVIATA starring Maria Callas.

Callas and Raimondi (above) reunited the following year as Anna and Percy in Donizetti's ANNA BOLENA. 1957 also marked the tenor's debut at Vienna, where he was to appear regularly for twenty seasons.

In 1963, the Vienna State Opera's production of LA BOHEME, under the direction of Herbert von Karajan, was filmed for posterity; Mirella Freni and Gianni Raimondi appeared as Mimi and Rodolfo. The performance is available on DVD.

Having debuted at San Francisco (1957) and the Teatro Colon (1959), Mr. Raimondi made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Rodolfo in BOHEME in 1965, opposite Ms. Freni. 

Above: Freni and Raimondi in BOHEME

BOHEME was the only opera I saw Raimondi in at The Met. The performance was in September 1968, and his Mimi was Teresa Stratas;  they were among the most moving of all the many interpreters of these roles I have seen thru the decades. My diary says the tenor was "...terrific...great upper range...beautiful portrayal..." 

Mr. Raimondi remained at the Met until 1969; his other roles there were Pinkerton, Donizetti's Edgardo, Faust, the Duke of Mantua, and Mario Cavaradossi. In 1968, the tenor joined Regine Crespin and Gabriel Bacquier in a thrilling broadcast performance of TOSCA, with Zubin Mehta conducting.

In the 1970s, Raimondi took on the spinto tenor roles in NORMA, I MASNADIERI, I VESPRI SIVILIANI, and SIMON BOCCANEGRA.

Following his retirement from the stage, the tenor lived in his villa by the sea at Riccione. He passed away in 2008.

Here is a collection of arias sung by Gianni Raimondi...some of these take a few seconds to start:

Gianni Raimondi - FAUST aria

Gianni Raimondi - GIOCONDA aria

Gianni Raimondi - Recondita armonia ~ TOSCA

Gianni Raimondi ~ Nessun dorma - TURANDOT

~  Oberon