Word: escamillo
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...best writers in the world writing for me-guys like Verdi, Puccini, Bizet." For all his clowning, Merrill is a deadly serious artist who uses his peculiarly suave, resonant and firmly centered baritone to excellent effect, particularly in the roles Warren neglects-Carmen's Escamillo, The Barber Figaro, Don Carlo's Rodrigo...
...Carmen is Carmen. It is about the most desirable of all roles for female singers, particularly if they have rich, dark voices. But where many women feel the urge to be a Carmen, comparatively few get the chance to face the footlights alongside a Don Jose or an Escamillo...
...awkward parade of supers into the bull ring in the last act. Guthrie and Gerard show a balcony full of spectators craning at an imaginary procession to an unseen ring. Moreover, they let the betrayed Don José catch up with Carmen in the tawdry hotel suite of Toreador Escamillo, instead of at the gates of the arena. Among other things, the switch permits Carmen to die with an added piece of melodrama-pulling down a huge red window drapery as she falls...
...Singing his first Don José, he proved again that his is probably the finest tenor to be heard today. No actor, he made a brave try to be one, and in the blazing fourth act succeeded. The rest of the cast, notably Frank Guarrera as Escamillo and Nadine Conner as Micaela, rallied to the cause. The orchestra, under Conductor Fritz Reiner, turned in a subtle and glowing performance...
...common to the Met's gigantic stage; Tenor Robert Rounseville brought a matinée idol's profile to Don José, but obviously had to work hard to restrain the grimaces that ordinarily go with a big voice. Like all the others, Baritone Robert Merrill as Escamillo had to unlearn one of the cardinal rules of opera-taking musical cues from the orchestra leader. The singers set the musical pace of the show because, roaming their nine sets, they were sometimes 200 feet from the 40 musicians jammed into a corner of the studio...