Word: basso
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...searched the files of the Berkeley Public Library, but I can't find a line about Cover Artist Boris Chaliapin," writes a woman in California. "Is he related to the late great Metropolitan basso...
...money-making Manhattan season, the traditional enthusiasm for Verdi and Wagner was being challenged by an increased popular demand for the lighthearted operas of Mozart. Many suspected that this de mand for Mozart was really a demand for Ezio Pinza - the brawny, lusty-voiced, 52-year-old basso who sings the Mozart scores to a fare-ye-well. As Don Giovanni, Figaro and Sarastro (in The Magic Flute} the former Italian bicycle racer had be come the Met's most reliable attraction...
...keep U.S. newspaper editors interested in Basso Pinza, his agents are now circulating a glossy, 60-page book which describes the singer as "a bronze Roman god come to life [and] one of the 14 most glamorous men in the world. . . ." He "sends chills down feminine spines." The press book urges household editors to mull over Pinza's recipe for Verona fish pudding; farm editors are assured that he is a poultry breeder. Pinza fans, under the spell of their hero, see nothing amiss in this ballyhoo: they consider him every bit as good as the overblown Pinza publicity...
...British authori ties to Mexico to conduct a festival of three Mozart operas, Sir Thomas arrived to find a rival opera season in full swing at Mexico City's only opera house. Promised Government support for his festival had failed to materialize. One of his leading singers, Basso Carlos Rufino, had recently shot an amatory rival in a Mexico City movie theater and was giving rehearsals a discouragingly defensive tone by packing a pistol...
Last week the rival Don Giovanni came off. Despite a few first-rate voices, it resembled a turgid Italian antipasto rather than an exquisite Mozartian souffle. One of the first-rate voices, the Metropolitan Opera's great comic basso, Salvatore Baccaloni, summed it all up by saying: "It stank, if I say so myself." Said the critic of Novedades: "The performance could only be described as weird. Unfortunately, those who did not attend may have been misled by one of my distinguished colleagues who rushed into print Sunday morning stating that the performance could hardly be equaled at Covent...