Oberon's Grove

Vivaldi ~ GLORIA

Ensemble Musica Sacra Dresden, directed by Karl Hänsel, perform Vivaldi's GLORIA; the concert dates from 2015.

Watch and listen here.

Voigt/Gergiev SALOME

A concert performance of Strauss' SALOME from the Verbier Festival 2010 has come to my attention. Deborah Voigt sings the title-role, and Valery Gergiev conducts.

Watch and listen here.

Salome: Deborah Voigt
Herodias: Dame Gwyneth Jones
Jochanaan: Evgeny Nikitin
Herod: Siegfried Jerusalem

Jessye Norman ~ Vier Letze Lieder

Jessye Norman sings Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs from a 1979 concert, with the Orchestre de La Suisse Romande conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch.

Watch and listen here.

Stars of La Scala ~ Moscow Concert 1964

A recital of Verdi arias performed by leading singers from La Scala on a visit to Moscow in 1964.

Watch and listen here.

Giulietta Simionato is oddly out-of-sorts, but there are some interesting items here:

O Don Fatale (Giulietta Simionato)
Ella giammai m'amo (Nicola Zaccaria)
La luce langue  (Linda Vajna)
Questa o quella (Luciano Pavarotti)
Ave Maria (Gabriella Tucci)
Infelice, e tuo credevi (Nicola Zaccaria)
O patria mia (Gabriella Tucci)
Il lacerato spirito (Nicola Zaccaria)
Pace, pace mio Dio (Gabriella Tucci)
La donna e mobile (Luciano Pavarotti)

FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN ~ Marseille 1995

Above: Anna Tomowa-Sintow as the Kaiserin

Richard Strauss's masterpiece DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN in a performance from Marseille in 1995. Anna Tomowa-Sintow and Dame Gwyneth Jones head the cast. Watch and listen here.

Curtain call: Dame Gwyneth Jones

Cast:
Kaiserin: Anna Tomowa-Sintow
Kaiser: Horst Hoffmann
Färberin: Gwyneth Jones
Barak, der Färber: Jean-Philippe Lafont
Amme: Reinhild Runkel
Geisterbote: Malcolm Rivers
Stimme des Falken: Brigitte Anselmino
Die Erscheinung eines Jünglings: Alain Gabriel
Stimme von oben: Nathalie Stutzmann
Der Hüter der Schwelle: Artur Stefanowicz
Der Einäugige: Philippe Fourcade
Der Einarmige: Chris de Moor
Der Bucklige: Yvan Matiakh

Conductor: Friedrich Pleyer
Orchestre et Choeur de l'Opera de Marseille

Gabriel Fauré: Cantique de Jean Racine

The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra join forces for a virtual presentation of Gabriel Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine under the direction of the TSO's Resident Conductor Simon Rivard.

Watch and listen here.

Other Voices ~ V

I first heard the voice of Kammersängerin Grace Hoffman (above) on a recording of a broadcast of FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN in which she sang The Nurse. She made a vivid impression in that role.

Ms. Hoffman was a native of Cleveland, Ohio; among her teachers were Friedrich Schorr and Mario Basiola. She came to the attention of the music-loving world after winning a major voice competition at Lausanne in 1951.

Among her earliest operatic roles was the Priestess in AIDA at the Maggio Musicale in 1951. She debuted at Zurich as Azucena in 1952, remaining with the Swiss company thru 1955, whereupon she joined the ensemble at Stuttgart where she was a great favorite for many years. Ms. Hoffman sang at La Scala, London, Vienna, Munich, San Francisco, Paris, the Liceu at Bercelona, and the Monnaie. She made her Met debut as Brangaene in 1958.

Above: Grace Hoffman as Ortrud at Bayreuth

Grace Hoffman was a mainstay at the Bayreuth Festival from 1957 thru 1970 where she appeared as Brangaene, Waltraute, the 2nd Norn, Fricka, and Ortrud. She recorded Gertrud in HANSEL UND GRETEL with Cluytens, and Handel's MESSIAH with Klemperer, and she maintained a busy schedule as a concert artist and recitalist.

In 1978, Ms. Hoffman became professor of voice at the Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart; it was at Stuttgart that she passed away in 2008.

Grace Hoffman sings Brahms' Alto Rhapsody here.

Sample her Brangaene here:

Grace Hoffman - Einsam wachend in der Nacht ~ TRISTAN UND ISOLDE

Ian Partridge was born at Wimbledon in 1938. He sang in the choir at New College, Oxford, and studied at the Royal College of Music and at the Guildhall School. He joined the Westminster Cathedral Choir, and coached with Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears.

Mr. Partridge's professional debut came in 1958, singing Handel's MESSIAH. From then on, he enjoyed a very busy career in concert and oratorio, and he sang over 400 recitals with his sister, pianist Jennifer Partridge. After his farewell performances in 2008, he went on to give masterclasses at numerous music centers.

Ian Partridge - Schubert~Wandrers Nachtlied

Mr. Partridge made his only appearance in opera: at Covent Garden, as Iopas in LES TROYENS, a role he later recorded. 

Ian Partridge - O blonde Ceres - TROYENS

Miti Truccato-Pace, born in Turin in 1927, appears in comprimaria role on many recordings - both studio and 'live' - made in the 1950s and 1960s. It's difficult to find career information about this singer, who seems to have been an indispensable presence at recording studios. 

Despite the number of recordings on which Ms. Truccato-Pace is featured, there are few excerpts that truly tell us what her voice was like. This duet from Rossini's L'OCCASIONE FA IL LADRO with Italo Tajo displays her gift for vocal characterization. Listen to it here.

Basso Raymond Michalski, a native of Bayonne, New Jersey, gave over 300 performances with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York City and on tour.

Mr. Michalski had studied with Rosalie Miller at the Mannes School, and made his operatic debut as Nourabad in Bizet's PEARL FISHERS with the Philadelphia Grand Opera in 1959.

The basso's Met debut came in 1965, as The King of Egypt in AIDA. His repertoire included both Benoit and Colline in BOHEME, Mathieu in ANDREA CHENIER, Verdi's Monterone, Ferrando, Lodovico, and Grand Inquisitor; Masetto in DON GIOVANNI, Raimondo in LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, Mr. Swallow in PETER GRIMES, Timur in TURANDOT, King Henry in LOHENGRIN, Capulet in ROMEO ET JULIETTE, Varlaam in BORIS GODUNOV, and Oroveso in NORMA. It was in the last-named role that I saw Mr. Michalski in a tour performance at Boston with Shirley Verrett singing her first-ever Norma. A week later, on April 26th, 1976, he sang Oroveso again in Cleveland in what turned out to be his last performance with the Met Company.

Here is the finale of the Boston performance, with Mr. Michalski, Ms. Verrett, and tenor John Alexander.

NORMA - finale - Shirley Verrett w John Alexander & Raymond Michalski - Met Tour Boston 1976

On April 11th, 1966, Mr. Michalski had the distinction of appearing in the first-ever opera given at the New Met at Lincoln Center: a performances for school students scheduled for the Old House was moved with little prior notice to the New House, as a sort of sound-check. Mr. Michalski sang Jose Castro in FANCIULLA DEL WEST that afternoon.

A highlight of Michalski's Met career came in 1967 when he created the role of Jed in the world premiere of Marvin David Levy's MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA. He made a very fine impression in the role; I consider MOURNING to be the great American opera.

Raymond Michalski as Jed - Levy's Mourning Becomes Electra - w Lear - Met 1967  

Mary Costa (above, in her Met debut role as Violetta) gained worldwide fame performing the voice of Aurora in the 1959 classic Disney film SLEEPING BEAUTY, but the beauteous blonde soprano had an estimable career as an opera star as well.

A native of Knoxville, Ms. Costa's family moved to Los Angeles while she was in her teens. She sang solos at church and later with her sorority. In 1958, having already recorded the Disney soundtrack, she won glowing reviews for a concert she gave at the Hollywood Bowl. This led to an invitation to sing the role of  Mařenka in Smetana's BARTERED BRIDE, produced by the renowned German director Carl Ebert, for the Los Angeles Opera Guild. Ebert then requested that she appear at the Glyndebourne Festival.

Also in 1959, Mary Costa sang Cunegonde in the British premiere of Bernstein's CANDIDE. She appeared at Covent Garden and at the Bolshoi as Violetta in TRAVIATA.

In 1963, at the invitation of Jacqueline Kennedy, Ms. Costa sang the Libera me from the Verdi REQUIEM at a televised memorial concert for John F Kennedy. Watch her performance here. In 1971, she sang in the opening performance of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Mary Costa made her Met debut in TRAVIATA in 1964 and went on to sing Manon, Marguerite in FAUST, Rosalinda in FLEDERMAUS, Verdi's Alice Ford, and Musetta with the Company.  In 1968, she appeared at The Met in the title-role of Samuel Barber's VANESSA. 

In 1972, Ms. Costa starred in the feature film THE GREAT WALTZ. After retiring from the stage and screen, became active as a motivational speaker at schools and colleges across the country, and campaigned for child abuse prevention. In 2003, she was appointed by President George W. Bush to the National Council on the Arts.

In 1999, my late friend Makiko Narumi took the above photo of Louis Quilico, Giulietta Simionato, Licia Albanese, and Mary Costa at the dinner party following the annual Licia Albanese Puccini Foundation gala, at which Makiko had sung as a prize-winner.

Mary Costa - Musetta's Waltz

~ Oberon

Gabriella Tucci ~ Un bel dì vedremo

Gabriella Tucci, who recently passed away, sings Un bel dì vedremo from Puccini's MADAMA BUTTERFLY at a 1964 recital.

Watch and listen here.