Word: duet
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...acoustics, both orchestra and singers sounded incredibly clear and uncannily near. A far cry, as they say, from Lincoln Center's State Theatre, where people sixteen rows back in the Orchestra shouted "Louder!" at Paul Schofield in King Lear. Cornell MacNeil stole the show in La Gioconda, and his duet with Franco Corelli brought down the house. Neither Renata Tebaldi nor Cesare Siepi were quite as brilliant, but the singing all around was fine. The Met is an avowed showcase for stars, and it was the stars who put over this museum piece...
DEBUSSY: SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO (Everest). In Debussy's ethereal duet, written the year before he died, the sinuous lines of the violin float on air while the piano furnishes ground swells of sound. Debussy's directions for the second movement-"fantastic and light"-set the entire mood for French Violinist Christian Ferras and Pianist Pierre Barbizet. They also play Fauré's Second Violin Sonata, written like Debussy's in 1917 and likewise impressionist in manner, but more restrained...
...often the care, the audience's favorite was Zerlina, sung as soubrettishly as bearable by Spring Fairbank. Although her two charming scenes with Masetto were flawless, perhaps the most stylish singing came in the "La ci darem" duet with Giovanni. Bass Tom Weber, while rather dry-sounding and somewhat strained, made the most of Leporello's varied moods and tasks, though perhaps not with the same hilarity of his Don Alfonso (of last year's Cori). Less satisfactory were the nasal tenor of August Paglialunga, a peculiarly huge Don Ottavio, and the half-sung Masetto of Don Meaders...
...cannot deny the quality of Hippolyte's inspired, innovative sections: the Trio for the Fates in the Hades scene, "Quelle soudaine horreur," with its macabre, Gesualdo-like modulations (superbly sung in the production); Phedre's pathetic scena, "Cruella mere des amours": the Act IV Hippolyte-Aricie duet, "Ah! fautil e un jour," with its revealing major-minor key shifts, and Aricie's closing "Nightingale Aria," one of the first soprano vs. flute bel canto trials...
...baritone folk singer and guitar player who performed for Queen Elizabeth II while he was special assistant (from 1958 to 1960) to his cousin, John Hay Whitney, then Ambassador to Britain. When the Symingtons went to Washington, he began entertaining foreign visitors at informal songfests, usually in duet with his petite, chestnut-haired wife. An accomplished pianist and harpsichordist, Sylvia Symington has worked as a volunteer music teacher to Washington slum children, in 1960 organized a group of women to help wives of African diplomats overcome their awe of bustling Washington. Proficient in French, she even accompanied her wards...