Word: basse
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...surprise success as Amfortas in last summer's Parsifal at Bayreuth. Florida-born Negro Soprano Maroyne Betsch, 25, won rave reviews for her Salome with the Braunschweig Opera. In Bern, Tennessee-born Chloë Owen made outstanding debuts in Lohengrin and Mathis der Maler. Minnesota-born Bass-Baritone Keith Engen, 35, one of the stars of the Munich Opera, is so idolized in Germany that he obligingly changed the spelling of his first name to "Kieth" to make it easier for audiences...
...production did little to improve matters. The singing-by Baritone MacNeil in the title role, Soprano Leonie Rysanek and Mezzo-Soprano Rosalind Elias as the evil and good daughters of the King, Bass Cesare Siepi as a Jewish high priest-was generally good but rarely inspired. Conductor Thomas Schippers (who at 30 is the youngest conductor ever to open a Met season) whipped his orchestra through the score at a soprano-searing pace. The sets by Teo Otto and Wolfgang Roth were contradictory in style: an ornate realistic idol in one scene, a starkly abstract grillwork in another. Although...
...Concerto Grosso, Senturia teamed up six bass viols, eight 'celli, and a harpsichord, with a large sized crew of string and wind players. It was a semi-Stokowski reading of Handel, with much contrast between the fervid string group and the more restrained, less impassioned woodwind ensemble. The solo passages occasionally caused problems, as did the corps of basses which mainly served to muddy the sound...
...other sub-plot, which is partially justified by some noble writing for the bass-baritone, tells of Father Dossifey and his attempt to win peace and prosperity for his flock. In the end, the Czarina--at least, I think it's the Czarina--has him killed for reasons best known to herself...
Even more impressive to the Russians, at one of their own artistic games, was George London, Canadian-born U.S. bass-baritone, who last week became the first American ever to sing Boris Godunov in Russia. It was, admitted London, "like a Japanese ballplayer being invited to play first base for the Yankees." The negotiations leading to his invitation, said London, almost broke down during the U-2 incident, but, he added wryly, "what was I supposed to do-chicken?" London, who has performed the role often in the U.S. and Europe, had only three days to rehearse with the Bolshoi...