Janet Coster was born in London. She studied voice at the Guildhall School of Music, and also privately with Dame Eva Turner.
Ms. Coster sang at Covent Garden during the 1960s, and joined the Cologne Opera in 1969, where she debuted as Vitellia in CLEMENZA DI TITO and scored a great personal success as Princess Eboli in DON CARLO.
She performed at Amsterdam, Aix-en-Provence, Glyndebourne, and with the Welsh National Opera and the English National Opera. In 1971, she sang Princess Eboli in a concert performance of DON CARLO with the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by James Levine. You can listen to it here, with Ms. Coster's Veil Song at 18:50 and her O don fatale at 1:54:00.
More from Janet Coster:
Janet Coster - O Vagabonda Stella d'Oriente ~ ADRIANA LECOUVREUR - Paris 1975
Jan Derksen was one of the leading Dutch singers of the '60s and '70s. initially as a baritone, and later appearing with success in tenor roles.
He trained at the Amsterdam Conservatory, and spent several seasons that followed with smaller German houses, where roles included Ezio in ATTILA at Bremerhaven (1964) and Posa in DON CARLO at Trier (1965). His repertory further included Verdi's Nabucco, Iago, Francesco Foscari, Simon Boccanegra, and Count Anckarström; Berg's Wozzeck, and Puccini's Scarpia. The tenor roles he tried in Amsterdam in the 1980s included Canio, Parsifal, and Otello.
In 1972, he sang Scarpia opposite Magda Olivero's Tosca in a concert performance at Amsterdam:
TOSCA - Act II scene - Magda Olivero & Jan Derksen - Amsterdam 1972
Above: In 1973, Derksen sang Wozzeck with the Nederlandse Opera opposite my beloved Maralin Niska as Marie.
Jan Derksen passed away in 2004.
Lydia Marimpietri began her career in the 1950s, and in 1959 she made her La Scala debut as Nella in Puccini’s GIANNI SCHICCHI; she later appeared there as Micaela in CARMEN and as Adina in ELISIR D'AMORE. She sang at Rome, Venice, Palermo, Florence, Naples, Bari, Trieste, Genoa, at the Teatro Regio in Parma (in 1974, as Pamina), and at the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania.
During the 1960s, Ms. Marimpietri appeared at Glyndebourne (as Monteverdi's Drusilla and Mozart's Susanna), and also guested at Dallas (singing Drusilla and Butterfly), Bilbao, Mexico City, Barcelona (as Gounod's Marguerite), Chicago, Covent Garden (as Nedda), Vienna (as Mimi, Susanna, and Micaela), and at the Caracalla Festival as Liu in TURANDOT.
Her repertory encompassed Mozart's Donna Elvira, Suzel in Mascagni’s L'AMICO FRITZ, Massenet's Manon, and Bizet's Leila, as well as concert works and lieder.
A sampling from Ms. Marimpietri's interpretation of Liu in TURANDOT here.
And the soprano sings Bellini and Verdi:
Lydia Marimpietri - Bellini ~ Almen se non poss'io
Lydia Marimpietri - Sul fil d'un soffio etesio ~ FALSTAFF
Evgeny Nesterenko was born in Moscow in 1938. He first studied architecture and graduated from the Leningrad Civil Engineering Institute in Leningrad. He then went on to study music with Vasily Lukanin at the Leningrad Conservatory, and he made his operatic debut at Leningrad’s Maly Opera (now the Mikhailovsky Theatre) in 1962. In 1965 he graduated from the conservatory and joined the Mariinsky Opera.
He won the gold medal at the 4th Moscow International Tchaikovsky Competition, and in 1971 he became a member of the Bolshoi Theatre, where he remained a principal artist throughout his career. He also developed an sterling international reputation, appearing at major opera houses throughout the world, including San Francisco Opera, Covent Garden, the Teatro alla Scala, and the Wiener Staatsoper..
Nesterenko's roles included highly acclaimed portrayals of Sarastro, Rossini's Don Basilio, Méphistophélès, Verdi's Ramfis, Attila, Banquo, and Philip II, and the Water Goblin in Dvořák’s RUSALKA. His most renowned role was Boris Godunov. In all, Nesterenko sang over 50 roles, dedicating much of his career to the music of Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Borodin; he was also the first to perform many works by Shostakovich, Sviridov, and Taktakishvili.
After retiring from the stage, Nesterenko taught at the Moscow Conservatory, and at the Music and Arts University in Vienna. He passed away on March 20, 2021, from complications of the COVID virus.
Nesterenko sings Mussorgsky's Song of the Flea here.
More from this magnificent basso:
Evgeny Nesterenko - Confutatis maledictis ~ Verdi REQUIEM
Evgeny Nesterenko - Vieni o Levita! ~ NABUCCO
Evgeny Nesterenko - None but the Lonely Heart
I saw the Hungarian soprano Karola Ágai (sometimes spelt Ágay) as Lucia di Lammermoor at The Met in 1969. Although on that evening her highest notes sounded somewhat diffuse, she was a fine technician and made a very good impression.
Karola Ágai began her career in 1953 as a member of the Hungarian Radio Choir. From 1955 to 1957 she was a soloist with the vocal ensemble of the Hungarian People's Army. Her operatic debut came in 1955 as the Queen of the Night at the Hungarian State Opera. In 1957 she joined the Hungarian State Opera as a permanent member of the ensemble, singing there regularly thru the early 1980s.
Ms. Ágai's roles included Mozart's Constanze, Fiordiligi, and Susanna, Verdi's Gilda, Violetta, and Alice Ford, Zerbinetta, Rosalinda, Marguerite in FAUST, and Titania in MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. She also sang in several Hungarian operas.
Karola Ágai made guest appearances at Berlin, Hamburg, the Vienna Volksoper, the Wexford Festival, and at the Bolshoi. She also enjoyed an active career in oratorio, and she gave recitals in which her husband, guitarist László Szendrey-Karper, sometimes accompanied her.
Ms. Ágai passed away in her native Budapest in 2010.
From Hungarian television, Karola Ágai sings Rosina's "Una voce poco fa" here.
And here's an excerpt of the soprano singing Lucia:
Karola Ágai - Spargi d'amaro pianto ~ LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR