Word: otello
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...entirely by her own choice: when the Met announced that labor troubles last summer forced them to drop Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouweur, scheduled as a vehicle for Tebaldi, Italy's diva serena canceled her contract for the season. In the repertory she calls her own (Otello, Boheme, Tosca, Forza del Destino, Butterfly, Andrea Chenier) she still cannot be challenged for sheer lovely sound-a sound that when she is in proper form seems to lie in the center of the voice, with virtually no displacement of notes. And although her acting remains as wooden as ever...
...trained singer himself (even when he was 93 he used to quaver through the scores of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov or Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos), Shaw saved some of his sharpest shafts for vocalists. Of the famed Italian Tenor Enrico Tamberlik, appearing in Rossini's Otello, he wrote: "He sings in a doubtful falsetto and his movements are unmeaning, and frequently absurd. For the C sharp in the celebrated duet L'ira d'avverso fato, he substituted a strange description of shriek at about that pitch. The audience, ever appreciative of vocal curiosities, eagerly...
Lauritz Melchior 50th Anniversary (Asco, 2 LPs). This handsome salute to the great Heldentenor introduces him in the days (1913-18) when he was singing in opera and recital as a baritone, and carries him to his 1960 recording of Esultate from Otello. Even as a baritone-and even through the sizzle of old shellac-his voice had the tenoresque freshness, vigor and ringing power that later carried him trii umphantly through 24 years at the Met and 223 Tristans. Among the album's treasures: a 1924 scene from Siegfried ("Nothung! Not hung! Schmiede mein Hammer"), and the Bridal...
Booming Voice. In a career that spanned more than a quarter-century, Tibbett ranged through more than 70 roles. He was never a leading Wagnerian, instead concentrated on the great baritone roles of the Italian repertory: lago in Otello, the elder Germont in Traviata, Scarpia in Tosca, Amonasro in A'ida. For Tibbett the Met scheduled rarely performed operas such as Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, and it was Tibbett, a longtime champion of English-language opera, who created the baritone roles in such contemporary American operas as Deems Taylor's The King's Henchman and Peter...
When Del Ferro starred in Otello last week, few in the audience could have guessed that he had appeared only 15 times before on any opera stage. He displayed a richly colored voice of such volume and stamina that he sounded as fresh at the final curtain as he did in the opening scenes. A stocky (5 ft. 8 in., 180 Ibs.), barrel-chested man, he gave the role a sense of dramatic dignity that made the tortured delusions of the final scenes all the more moving. Critics and audience agreed that he promised to be one of the great...