Word: otello
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...burbled. Then and there, Del Monaco earned a reputation more for force than for artistry. After a heavy workout in Florence, he moved to La Scala. His first season at the Met (1951-52) caused some terrible word-hurling. Wrote one New York Times critic of his acting in Otello: "His chop-licking, heart-clasping, tooth-gnashing, narrow-glancing, head-wagging, threatening, tottering behavior had the audience snickering in embarrassment." Critics admired his powerful voice, but found it cold...
...judgment of doting listeners, Arturo Toscanini's 1947 broadcast of Verdi's Otello may well have been the finest performance ever heard on the air. Soloists Herva Nelli, Ramon Vinay and Giuseppe Valdengo sang as if they were in a state of musical exaltation, and the NBC Symphony's orchestral commentary was both dramatic and tender. Recently, after long refusing, Toscanini agreed to let RCA Victor make records from the monitoring transcription, and last week the three LPs were released. It is probably the Maestro's masterpiece...
...working on The Ring. Verdi was a clear exception. He churned out 25 operas by the time he was 58, then went into semiretirement. Meanwhile, Wagner's fame soared. At 74 Verdi began again, and in six years wrote Falstaff and Otello, considered by many his masterpieces...
...almost any coloratura role that may come her way. Most of the eight she already knows (e.g., Gilda in Rigoletto; Olympia in Tales of Hoffmann) call for light-skinned singers, but she has no objection to wearing light makeup. "If white singers make up to play Aida or Otello," she says, "why shouldn't Negroes be able to make up for roles like Lucia di Lammermoor...
Even the press enjoyed itself. Wrote Critic Henry S. Humphreys in the Times-Star: "There has been a jinx on operas based on Shakespeare's plays. With the possible exception of Otello, not one of them has held the stage. I confidently predict that Vittorio Giannini's The Taming of the Shrew . . . will break the Shakespeare jinx...