Word: mezzo
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...another the magic happens often these days for the speaker -a radiantly pretty mezzo-soprano from New Jersey who did not attend her first opera until she was 16, could not read music until 20 and probably would never have entered music school if a friend had not dared her. Her pals call her "Flicka," but to the world of music, she is Frederica von Stade of the Metropolitan Opera and a clamoring chorus of other companies in the U.S. and Europe...
...next week she will sing the same role at La Scala. When not in the opera house, she is in the recording studios. Two new albums, French Opera Arias (Columbia) and Frederica von Stade Sings Mozart-Rossini Opera Arias (Philips), display what the fuss is about -a lustrous amber mezzo-soprano voice with an unusually high, sweet crystalline top and seemingly effortless agility...
...will show in some new way his wife Joan Sutherland's extraordinary voice. There are few coloratura fireworks in Esclmonde. One hears instead her middle-high range - lustrous, dusky, moving seamlessly between registers. No other singer could bring this music so close to distinction. Among the other principals, Mezzo Huguette Tourangeau, as the Empress' sister, sang with impeccable French style. The sets by Beni Montresor consist mostly of scrims and drops on which light shows swirl. To fashion his opulent costumes, the garment district must have emptied its bins of beads...
...Azucena was Shirley Verrett, who, like Pavarotti, is at a career turning point.A Met regular for eight years, she is basically a mezzo with an unusually high, extended range. Lately, she has been trying to move into the repertory of the dramatic soprano. The results have been only partially successful, largely because in moving higher her voice takes on an icy whiteness of tone. Returning to the mezzo range of Azucena, however, Verrett sang with overwhelming fire and urgency. One would hate to see a woman as lovely as Verrett consigned forever to play a hag like Azucena, but hers...
...exuberant parade. Conductor Raymond Leppard, a specialist in 17th century music, was an adventurous choice to lead the orchestra. He responded enthusiastically, adding an overture and some instrumentation of his own devising. Singing the part of Susan B. Anthony is Mignon Dunn, who claims she knows every mezzo and contralto role in Wagner's Ring cycle. Her voice sounded opulent, and in her rich scarlet uniform, she occasionally looked more like a warrior maid than a Quaker suffragist...