Word: melchiore
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...most frequently heard operas, four are his-Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde and Die Walküre. From Caruso's debut (1903) until eleven years ago, the Met had a thick Italian accent. Then came the great Norwegian, Kirsten Flagstad, to join the great Dane, Lauritz Melchior-two singers with the bellows and brawn to shout down the batteries of trumpets and trombones that Wagner put to work in the pit. Since Flagstad went home to her quisling husband and semi-retirement in 1941, the Met's Wagnerian first team has been Melchior and Traubel...
...great singer, and because she was so sure, she was in no hurry. When she was 23, in the summer of 1926, Rudolph Ganz, the conductor of the St. Louis Symphony, took her to New York's Lewisohn Stadium for a guest appearance. That was the year Lauritz Melchior made his Metropolitan debut in Tannhäuser, an event eclipsed by another debut the evening of the same day. With the greatest blowing & puffing of publicity ever to accompany a U.S. operatic debut, Marion Talley, an 18-year-old Kansas City soprano, sang Gilda in Rigoletto, to the clicking...
...Traubel sang the Immolation Scene from Göterdämerung with the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York. She was quickly offered a Metropolitan contract; this time she was ready. In her Met debut as Sieglinde in Die Walküe, Flagstad sang Brünnhilde and Lauritz Melchior Siegmund. Traubel's opulent tones sent critics away raving. Said the New York Times: "The voice is a glorious one." After an Ann Arbor concert, a reviewer put it in good plain Michigan talk: "Miss Traubel hoisted a couple of tones across Hill Auditorium that could have been used...
...Lauritz Melchior, who has sung about 125 times opposite each, says: "Flagstad's voice is like a shining diamond. Traubel's voice is like a beautiful ruby." He adds: "Traubel is one of the greatest darlings I have ever been working with. In the last 20 years I have killed at least 24 Isoldes. Helen is the most agreeable. She is the nicest of them all. Flagstad was not so easy. She got a little swollen with success. Helen will always have both feet on the ground. She will never start...
Traubel's and Melchior's relationship is Falstaffian. In Die Walküre, when Traubel is left alone on stage, Melchior sometimes prances about the wings as a Rhine maiden in a grass skirt, to try to make her laugh. Once, when she leaned tenderly over his body on the couch in the last act of Tristan, in the scene where Tristan dies of wounds inflicted by a jealous rival, Melchior muttered: "Helena, hurry up the Liebestod (love death). I'm hungry and I need a beer...