Word: puccini
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Critic Olin Downes once noted that Tebaldi's strapping Mimi bore little resemblance to the fragile figure Puccini and Murger conceived her to be; but he added that Tebaldi sang so movingly, with such tragic overtones, that her "enlarged portrait" emerged as more compelling than the original. The same thing might be said of most of her famous roles: in the end, a colleague notes, "they always come out Tebaldi...
...entered the Arrigo Boito Conservatory in Parma and began studying voice. In 1940, when she was 18 and on a Christmas visit to her aunt in Pesaro, she got her big break: an audition with famed Soprano Carmen Melis, venerated in Italy as one of the great Puccini singers of all time, and then a teacher at the Rossini Conservatory. Melis took on Tebaldi as a fulltime pupil, made her into the kind of singer she is today. Melis worked on voice placement, taught Tebaldi the piano singing to which her voice is naturally adapted. As models, Melis pointed...
...semi-pro baseball. He still sings regularly in Las Vegas nightclubs, once explained his devotion to opera: "I'd like to be a comedian, but their material wears out so fast. Me, I've got the 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...
...Brussels opening: "The audience applauded mightily, but the work had moments rather than momentum. The music consisted of only a few themes linked by weak chains. One motif-that of romantic love-was warm, sweet and haunting. And occasionally voices rose in skillful counterpoint. There were echoes of Puccini-one was tempted, as a Belgian critic put it, to shout at Menotti: 'All right then, simply sing like Puccini...
...lushly singing strings. A painstaking workman who admired clarity ("The black scores," he said, "are the easiest to fake"), he left as his legacy only eleven operas. But 34 years after his death, the world of opera has not found a composer who can speak to the universal audience Puccini commands...