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...BEST OF HERMAN'S HERMITS, VOL II (MGM). The Hermits are still the Cub Scouts of rock 'n' roll, gentle, boyish and earnest. Sample homilies from Herman, sung to a junior Beatle beat: "Everybody's got to lose somebody sometime" (from Listen People) and "Make the most of lovin' if you're not prepared to die" (from This Door Swings Both Ways...
...London recording of Semiramide, for example, most of the dazzling trills and turns, runs and roulades sung by Joan Sutherland were not written by Rossini but by her husband Conductor Richard Bonynge. La Stupenda's enormous success with bel canto embroidery, now emulated by a long and impressive roster of young singers underscores the most significant change in opera singing in 150 years...
...18th century Italy, reports Pleasants, women singers were considered hardly better than prostitutes and were banned throughout the Papal States. Thus most female roles were sung by castrati, who were paid four times as much as the other singers, up to 20 times as much as the composers. Some tenacious women singers masqueraded as castrati (which caused occasional -and embarrassing- sexual complications). When women were finally accepted on all opera stages in the early 1800s, the vain castrati resented the competition. The result was some classic vocal jousts. Castrato Domenico Caffarelli, for instance, liked to fluster the sopranos during duets...
...reared, was an impoverished young soprano who haunted rehearsals at the Comique. Her moment came when, during a performance of Gustave Charpentier's Louise, the lead soprano suddenly collapsed after the second act. Panic-stricken, the director asked Mary if she could fill in. Though she had never sung on a stage before, much less with an orchestra, she pluckily replied: "Have no fear. I shall not fail." She hastily pinned her 98 lbs. into a costume several sizes too large and boldly stepped onstage. She caused such a sensation in the role that she subsequently sold...
NOEL (Vanguard). Mostly traditional Christmas carols sung by the silvery knife-thin voice of Joan Baez to the accompaniment of recorders, viols and the like. Not her best but still appealing and direct...