Word: coloratura
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...mighty, but the New York City Opera has Beverly Sills. In 1966 she became a top star overnight, singing the coloratura role of Cleopatra in Handel's Julius Caesar. She repaid City Opera by becoming the bestselling box-office draw in its 34-year history. Last January, when Sills, 49, announced that she would end her singing career in 1980, she promised that she would stay on at City Opera?as co-director with Julius Rudel, 57, her mentor and director of the company for 21 years. Last week "Good Queen Bev," as Rudel has called her since her smashing...
...works are all but forgotten. They are opera seria, the early style of Italian opera that can present obstacles for the modern listener: dry recitatives, stiff action, mezzos singing male roles. But there is splendid music here, and even some good drama. Arleen Augér pours out brilliant coloratura cascades in Mitridate as the old King's fiancée; Baltsa stands out as Farnace, Mitridate's arrogant son. In La Clemenza, Baker's unique timbre and intensity fire the role of the vindictive Princess Vitellia, and Burrows is appropriately regal as the forgiving Emperor. These...
...peak, the Sills coloratura was a rich, incredibly supple flute. The high notes do not come as effortlessly as they once did, but the voice is still basically secure, and Sills should have no trouble finishing her last seasons in high style. Her first big test comes this very week with Massenet's Thaïs at the Metropolitan Opera. It is a high lyric role ("Manon with no clothes on," says Sills), and its range is brutal: from below middle C to high D. The show is a loan of the same production Sills scored a success...
...prime, Callas sang dramatic, lyric and coloratura roles with equal ease. Almost singlehanded she created the revival of bel canto. It was because of her voice and presence that Norma and I Puritani are now popular after decades of neglect. For this one accomplishment, hordes of opera lovers, as well as Sopranos Joan Sutherland, Montserrat Caballe and Sills herself, owe Callas a lasting debt. And she acted these roles with a devouring intensity that might do justice to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf...
...vast comic incongruity. Kirchner's hero (even though splendidly performed by Bass Ara Berberian) is a one-dimensional klutz. The pity is that there is so much good music in Lily - the Bartokian orchestral evocation of the jungle, the sweet, pristine chants of the natives, the often amusing coloratura chirping of Lily (Susan Belling...