Above: Carlo Maria Giulini, photo by Gary Friedman
Carlo Maria Giulini conducts the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai and the Chorus of the Orchestre de Paris in the a performance of the Verdi REQUIEM given at Turin in 1998. The soloists are Maria Dragoni, Katia Lytting, Stuart Neill, and Peter Mikulas.
Watch and listen here.
I've been listening to Leona Mitchell a lot these past few days. She was one of my favorite sopranos during her seasons at The Met - a singer I would make special trips to New York City to see.
Her Met debut in 1975 was as Micaela, and at first she sang lyric roles like Lauretta, Pamina, Musetta, and even several performances as the Celestial Voice in DON CARLO. As the voice grew richer and more powerful, she took on Madame Lidoine, the FORZA and TROVATORE Leonoras, Cio-Cio-San, Elvira in ERNANI, Delilah in Handel's SAMSON, Aida, Manon Lescaut, Mimi, Liu, Gershwin's Bess, and Amelia in BALLO IN MASCHERA.
Listen to Leona in TROVATORE here and here, and an aria from BALLO IN MASCHERA here.
And watch her here singing Liu's Act I aria from TURANDOT at The Met in 1988.
Above: Monte Pederson as Wotan and Elizabeth Connell as Brunnhilde
Simone Young conducts a performance of DIE WALKURE given at the Vienna Staatsoper in November of 1997.
Watch and listen here.
CAST:
Siegmund: Jyrki Niskanen
Wotan: Monte Pederson
Hunding: Walter Fink
Sieglinde: Nadine Secunde
Fricka: Margareta Hintermeier
Brünnhilde: Elizabeth Connell
Gerhilde: Silvana Dussmann
Ortlinde: Althea-Maria Papoulias
Waltraute: Nelly Boschkowa
Schwertleite: Axelle Gall
Helmwige: Marta Banfalvi
Siegrune: Linda Pavelka
Grimgerde: Svetlana Serdar
Rossweise: Waltraud Winsauer
Conductor: Simone Young
Things I found by chance on YouTube during the pandemic.
Mezzo-soprano Nell Rankin sings a slightly truncated "Pace, pace mio dio" from Verdi's LA FORZA DEL DESTINO - an aria usually sung by a soprano - on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1958.
Watch and listen here.
Bass-baritone Yi-Kwei Sze sings Franz Schubert's "An die Musik" as an encore at a 1978 recital at the Eastman School. The pianist is Robert Freeman. Listen here.
A brief clip of contralto Ortrun Wenkel rehearsing the final section of Brahms' Alto Rhapsody.
Watch and listen here.
Apollo Granforte sings Cascart's brief and beautiful aria "Zaza, piccola zingara" from Leoncavallo's ZAZA. Listen here.
I was surprised to find this rendition of "Mira, O Norma" from Bellini's NORMA sung by Claire Watson (above) and Hertha Töpper. I was not aware that either singer had sung any Bellini; this is from a Munich radio concert in 1966. Listen here.
Alice Coote gives a wonderfully distinctive rendering of Gustav Mahler's "Ich bin der Welt Abhanden Gekommen" with the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest conducted by Ingo Metzmacher
Watch and listen here.
New York City-born tenor Arturo Sergi sings "Celeste Aida" in German with the orchestra of the Frankfurt Opera, conducted by Carl Bamberger. Listen here.
Sergi was a mainstay at Frankfurt Opera, and he sang at Covent Garden, Hamburg, Bayreuth, and Cologne. He appeared at both the Old and New Mets, and at New York City Opera. He was also a notable cantor.
Anneliese Rothenberger sang in the first Met broadcasts of ARABELLA, BALLO IN MASCHERA, and ROSENKAVALIER that I heard as a fledgling opera fan. She was a mega-star in Germany. Mezzo-soprano Elisabeth Steiner was a member of the Hamburg Opera for 40 years; despite a career beset by allergies, she won great acclaim in roles like Carmen, Octavian, and Mignon. As far as I can ascertain, she never sang in the USA.
The two women sing the Barcarolle from TALES OF HOFFMANN on German TV here.
Renata Scotto, Nicolai Gedda, and Samuel Ramey sung the final trio from Gounod's FAUST at the 1982 Gala of Stars. James Levine is on the podium.
Watch and listen here.
Above: Louis Hagen-William as Mephistopheles in FAUST
There are lots of singers I've never heard, but not so many that I have never heard of. One such name popped up while I was checking out a 1990 performance of AIDA from Oviedo on YouTube: Louis Hagen-William. Mr. Hagen-William plays the King of Egypt in that performance.
Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Louis Hagen-William originally studied medicine. But then his love of singing took over, and he entered the National Conservatory in Paris, where he attained top honors prizes in both opera and concert singing. Then he won the international singing contests in S'hertogenbosch, Holland, and Toulouse, France.
His operatic career began at the Lyon Opera, run by Louis Erlo, and continued at L'Opéra, Paris. Louis Hagen-William sang such roles as Mephistopheles (FAUST), Nilankantha (LAKME), Dr. Bartolo (BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA), Zaccaria (NABUCCO), Timur (TURANDOT), and the Four Villains (CONTES D'HOFFMANN). He also performed regularly in recitals and concerts, and he made am LP recording of spirituals, from which comes this sample.
Mr. Hagen-William passed away in December 2020 at the age of 82.
Ghena Dimitrova (above), Aprile Millo, Dolora Zajick, Francesca Patané, Vladimir Popov, Emil Ivanov, and Valentin Peytchinov perform in a gala concert given at Detroit in 1990. Isaiah Jackson is the conductor.
Watch and listen here.
Above: soprano Anna Tomowa-Sintow
Maestro Claudio Abbado conducts the orchestra and chorus of La Scala in a performance of the Verdi REQUIEM given at Tokyo in 1981. The soloists are Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Lucia Valentini-Terrani, Veriano Lucchetti, and Nicolai Ghiaurov.
Watch and listen here.
Mildred Miller sings Robert Schumann's Frauenliebe und -liebe, recorded in 1977 with John Wustman at the piano. Listen here.
Ms. Miller was my first Magdalene in MEISTERSINGER and my first Annina in ROSENKAVALIER. And I have a special affection for her recording of the Brahms Alto Rhapsody.
Franca Mattiucci (above), Flaviano Labò, and Nicola Ghiuselev sing the Lux Aeterna from the Verdi REQUIEM in a performance given at Sofia, Bulgaria in 1976. Vasil Stefanov conducts.
Lux Aeterna ~ Verdi REQUIEM - Mattiucci-Labo-Ghiuselev = Sofia 1976
In my lifetime, Fernando Corena (above, as the Sacristan in TOSCA) was the Met's great basso buffo; from his Met debut in 1954 as Leporello to his final Met appearance as Don Pasquale in 1978, Mr. Corena sang 725 performances with the Company here in New York City and on tour.
Fernando Corena succeeded Salvatore Baccaloni in the buffo repertoire at The Met, and - like his predecessor - was much-loved by audiences... and by critics: in 1966 Harold Schoenberg wrote in the New York Times: "...(Corena) is the outstanding buffo in action today and the greatest scene-stealer in the history of opera".
Fernando Corena was born in Switzerland in 1916. Initially he intended to enter the priesthood; but discovering his vocal gift took him in a different direction.
After taking voice lessons in his native land, he moved to Italy to study with the conductor Vittorio Gui. He returned to Switzerland as World War II loomed on the horizon, and he spent the war years singing in radio concerts and occasionally at the Zurich Opera.
He made his Italian debut as Varlaam in BORIS GODUNOV at Trieste in 1947 and was soon singing throughout Italy. His repertoire included such dramatic roles as Sparafucile, Escamillo, and Baron Scarpia. He recorded the role of the King of Egypt in AIDA...
Fernando Corena as Il Re - AIDA ensemble - with Tebaldi Stignani del Monaco Caselli
...and the baritone role of Ping in Puccini's TURANDOT:
Fernando Corena as Ping - TURANDOT trio - with Carlin & Ercolani
Then, increasingly, Corena began moving into basso buffo roles. He starred at the 1953 Edinburgh Festival as Falstaff, and from there steadily built an international career, appearing at Glyndebourne, Tel Aviv, Covent Garden, the Monnaie, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Vienna, Salzburg, the Teatro Colón, Paris, and Mexico City.
Fernando Corena made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1954 as Leporello (above) and went on to give 725 performances with the Company in New York City and on tour. His Met roles included Varlaam, both Alcindoro and Benoit in BOHEME, Dr. Bartolo in both the Rossini and Mozart settings, Don Alfonso in COSI FAN TUTTE, Donizetti's Dulcamara, Sergeant Sulpice, and Don Pasquale, Verdi's Falstaff and Fra Melitone, and Mustafa in ITALIANA IN ALGERI. Corena's last Met performance was in 1984 as Don Pasquale.
Fernando Corena - La vendetta ~ NOZZE DI FIGARO
Perhaps his most beloved characterization at The Met was as the Sacristan in TOSCA, a role he sang 123 times with the Company. During the opera's opening scene at the Sant'Andrea delle Valle church, Corena as the busybody Sacristan would continually take pinches of snuff, but he never sneezed. Then, after exiting the stage, the basso would sneeze loudly, invariably evoking a wave of laughter from the audience. It was the last light moment of the opera, wherein all three of the main characters are dead by the final fall of the curtain. Corena's Sacristan is immortalized on film from a televised 1978 Met performance with Shirley Verrett, Luciano Pavarotti, and Cornell MacNeil.
1970, Mr. Corena sang Sulpice in a concert performance of Donizetti's FILLE DU REGIMENT at Carnegie Hall. Beverly Sills was Marie, and the performance is one of my happiest operatic memories:
Beverly Sills & Fernando Corena ~ FILLE DU REGIMENT duet - Carnegie Hall 1970
Fernando Corena passed away at Lugano, Switzerland in 1984 at the age of 67.