# Opera names that sound alike



## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

How many similar names can you think of? Examples below:

Francesco Albanese and Licia Albanese
Maria Galvany and Marisa Galvany
Margaret Price and Leontyne Price
Lilli Lehmann and Lotte Lehmann
Battistini and Bastianini
Pons and Ponselle
De Lucia and De Luca
Scacciati and Stracciari


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## davidglasgow (Aug 19, 2017)

When I was just learning about different opera singers , a few names sounded very much alike to me even though the voices were so different e.g. Tagliabue and Tagliavini, Taddei and Tozzi, Bonci/Borgioli/Bergonzi as well as Smirnov and Sobimov. 

I think Alan Blyth mentioned the Italian sopranos whose names might be mixed up e.g. Sciutti + Scotto + Moffo (Millo could be there as well)


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Margherita Carosio and Enrico Caruso.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I often do a double take when I see the names of Francesco Meli (a tenor singing today) and the incomparable tenor Francesco MeRli. Both Tenors and only one letter different.

N.


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## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

davidglasgow said:


> When I was just learning about different opera singers , a few names sounded very much alike to me even though the voices were so different e.g. *Tagliabue and Tagliavini*, Taddei and Tozzi, Bonci/Borgioli/Bergonzi as well as Smirnov and Sobimov.
> 
> I think Alan Blyth mentioned the Italian sopranos whose names might be mixed up e.g. Sciutti + Scotto + Moffo (Millo could be there as well)





Fritz Kobus said:


> Margherita Carosio and Enrico Caruso.





The Conte said:


> I often do a double take when I see the names of Francesco Meli (a tenor singing today) and the incomparable tenor Francesco MeRli. Both Tenors and only one letter different.
> 
> N.


How could I forget these?? Great entries!


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Has anyone ever noticed how a number of the names in the "American baritone line" are almost comically similar? I mean, there's...

Mack Harrell
Robert Merrill
Cornell MacNeil
Sherrill Milnes

A lot of double "l"'s and rhyming in there! Moreover, even Lawrence Tibbett, Leonard Warren and Quinn Kelsey all have double letters in their names.

Incidentally, Robert Merrill made his stage name by, basically, switching around the letters in his real last name, "Miller" (which was in turn derived from "Milstein"; his real first name was "Moishe"), and Leonard Warren's real last name was "Warenoff." Sherrill Milnes' first name is actually the last name of an Episcopal bishop his father admired: Reverend Henry Knox Sherrill.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

davidglasgow said:


> When I was just learning about different opera singers , a few names sounded very much alike to me even though the voices were so different e.g. Tagliabue and Tagliavini, Taddei and Tozzi, Bonci/Borgioli/Bergonzi as well as Smirnov and Sobimov.
> 
> I think Alan Blyth mentioned the Italian sopranos whose names might be mixed up e.g. Sciutti + Scotto + Moffo (Millo could be there as well)


J.B. Steane mentioned that second point, too (he may have been quoting Alan Blyth).


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Richard Tucker and Richard Tauber
Leontyne Price and Leona Mitchell
June Anderson and Joan Sutherland


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Worse is when an opera singer can be confused by name with a pop singer"

Ann Murray (Irish mezzo opera singer born in 1949)

Anne Murray (Canadian pop and country singer born in 1945)


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

Mario del Monaco and Jose Maria lo Monaco
The siblings Peter, Miroslav and Pavol Dvorsky


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## gsdkfasdf (11 mo ago)

Not even classical musicians...but I mentioned Audrey Luna to a friend who was confused and asked me if she was a pop singer. Then he corrected himself and was like "oh I was thinking of Audrey Nuna" 😂


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Opolais-Oropesa


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Olga Borodina (lyric mezzo), Tatiana Borodina (soprano).


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tuoksu said:


> Maria Galvany and Marisa Galvany


You mean these are two different people?

🤭

There's Ferruccio Tagliavini and Roberto Tagliavini.
And moving away from singers and onto characters, what about those similarly named bel canto heroines: Adina and Amina? Elivira is a character in I Puritani, Ernani and Don Giovanni. Rodolfo is the hero of both Luisa Miller and La Boheme. And let's not get into all those English queens, Elisabetta di Whatnot anyone?

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

ColdGenius said:


> Olga Borodina (lyric mezzo), Tatiana Borodina (soprano).


And then the male form of this surname, Borodin, is, of course the composer of the opera Prince Igor.

N.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

The Conte said:


> And then the male form of this surname, Borodin, is, of course the composer of the opera Prince Igor.
> 
> N.


😄 He didn't leave descendants. And these two are not relatives.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

The Conte said:


> You mean these are two different people?
> 
> 🤭
> 
> ...


Most Spanish girls in operas are called Leonora.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

ColdGenius said:


> Most Spanish girls in operas are called Leonora.


Even *Fidelio *is really called Leonore.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

ColdGenius said:


> Most Spanish girls in operas are called Leonora.


And their confidantes are called Inez.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Speech to text: Maria Callus


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

ColdGenius said:


> 😄 He didn't leave descendants. And these two are not relatives.





The Conte said:


> And then the male form of this surname, Borodin, is, of course the composer of the opera Prince Igor.
> 
> N.


You mean names of operas also count?
Then how about the famous one:
Ariadne auf Noxious
And what about opera phrases like: 
Ella Jemima mo


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

*Tosca* and *Fosca* 

*Tosca* is, of course, the 1900 Puccini opera named after the main character, Tosca, who flings herself off a parapet at the end.

*Fosca* is the ailing and dying protagonist/antagonist from Stephen Sondheim's musical (really an operetta) Passion. The story was adapted from Ettore Scola's 1981 film Passione d'Amore, and its source material, Iginio Ugo Tarchetti's 1869 novel Fosca.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

pianozach said:


> *Tosca* and *Fosca*
> 
> *Tosca* is, of course, the 1900 Puccini opera named after the main character, Tosca, who flings herself off a parapet at the end.
> 
> *Fosca* is the ailing and dying protagonist/antagonist from Stephen Sondheim's musical (really an operetta) Passion. The story was adapted from Ettore Scola's 1981 film Passione d'Amore, and its source material, Iginio Ugo Tarchetti's 1869 novel Fosca.


There is also an italian opera Fosca by brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Gomez.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

LATRaViATAiLTRoVAToRe


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Verdi
Monteverdi
Berg
Schoenberg
Woodduck
Wozzeck


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## Shaafee Shameem (Aug 4, 2021)

The Conte said:


> You mean these are two different people?
> 
> 🤭
> 
> ...


Leonora in 3 of Verdi’s operas, Oberto, Forza and Trovatore, and also in Donizetti’s La Favorita.


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## IgorS (Jan 7, 2018)

Giangiacomo _Guelfi_ 
Carlo Galeffi
_Carlo Guelfi_


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