# Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles of the Day Calendar...



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

This thread is intended to be the musical equivalent of a "Page-A-Day" calendar which will document a personal listening project that I have decided to embark upon and I hope that you will join me each day as featured arias, duets, and ensemble pieces by historic opera singers will be presented.

They may indeed by "Voices of the Past" but they are as thrilling - as transcendent - now as they were then and thus merit being heard and appreciated lest they forever fade into the obscurity of the forgotten past.

Each day will feature from three to five historic recordings along with biographical information, photographs, and performance videos (when available).

Initially two labels will be featured - Nimbus with the "_Prima Voce_" line of releases and Opera dOro with their "_Great Voices of the Past_" series - others will be added later.

Multiple artist listings will alternate with posts which feature a single performer.

Commentary on any and all aspects are welcomed.

- *Duncan*

*------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles for the day of October 6, 2019 -*









*Delibes: Lakmé -"Dov'e L'indiana Bruna" - Amelita Galli-Curci*














*"Amelita Galli-Curci *(18 November 1882 - 26 November 1963) was an Italian coloratura soprano. She was one of the most popular operatic singers of the 20th century, with her recordings selling in large numbers.

Galli-Curci made her operatic debut in 1906 at Trani, as Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, and she rapidly became acclaimed throughout Italy for the sweetness and agility of her voice and her captivating musical interpretations. She was seen by many critics as an antidote to the host of squally, verismo-oriented sopranos then populating Italian opera houses."

*Verdi: La traviata: "Attendo, attendo...Addio del passato" - Claudia Muzio*














*"Claudia Muzio* (7 February 1889 - 24 May 1936) was an Italian operatic soprano who enjoyed an international career during the early 20th century.

She established a special relationship with audiences at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, where she first appeared in June 1919 (in Catalani's Loreley). From then until 1934 she sang there in 23 different operas, becoming known as "la divina Claudia".

Muzio was noted for the beauty and warmth of her voice, which, although not particularly large, acquired a considerable richness of tonal colouring as she grew older. Her performances were sometimes criticized for excessive use of dynamic extremes, including her exquisitely expressive pianissimo singing."

*Bizet: Carmen: "Presso il bastion di Siviglia" (Séguidille) - Conchita Supervia
*













*Conchita Supervía* (8-9 December 1895[1] - 30 March 1936) was a highly popular Spanish mezzo-soprano singer who appeared in opera in Europe and America and also gave recitals.

She had a powerful chest register linked to a flexible upper voice that could cope easily with florid passages, allied to a musicianship of great individuality and infectious flair. Her voice is not without its critics; a pronounced vibrato that in the lower part of the voice became almost a machine-gun rattle, 'as strong as the rattle of ice in a glass, or dice in a box', in a comment attributed to the British critic, Philip Hope-Wallace.

Many who heard her in the flesh have said that this vibrato was more evident on records than on the stage - an example of the microphone exaggerating a singer's faults."

*Puccini: Vissi d'arte (from Tosca) - Magda Olivero*














*"Magda Olivero*, née Maria Maddalena Olivero (25 March 1910 - 8 September 2014), was an Italian operatic soprano. Her career started in 1932 when she was 22, and spanned five decades establishing her "as an important link between the era of the verismo composers and the modern opera stage". She has been regarded as "one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century."


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

This is wonderful. Thanks for this.
My favorite soprano, Magda Olivero, does a beautiful job with the Vissi d'arte.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

You've made some excellent choices, showing what made these singers distinctive. Today the agility, clarity, dreamy sweetness and sheer effortlessness of Galli-Curci in her prime knocked me out all over again and reminded me that some 78 rpm records inherited from my great grandfather were among my introductions to operatic singing in childhood. I played these on the family's Victrola (look it up, youngsters!):











A suggestion: If you can supply recording dates for your selections it would be useful for those interested in the chronology of a singer's career.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Mollie John said:


> *Verdi: La traviata: "Attendo, attendo...Addio del passato" - Claudia Muzio*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Claudia Muzio
(1889 - 1936)

I never thought I'd love an older woman,
and surely not one seventy years my senior.
But from the faded past, she reaches out:
a voice that captures, captivates my heart.

In times gone by, they called her "La Divina"-
an opera diva, great tragedienne, 
the Bernhardt or the Duse of her day.
Before Ponselle or Callas, there was Claudia.

Born in Pavia, parents musical,
she quickly showed her promise, stood apart.
A voice made up, her listeners soon would say,
of "tears and sighs," "restrained interior fire."

Reclusive, shy, devoted to her art,
she nonetheless found fame throughout the world-
New York, Chicago, Buenos Aires, Rome-
and set her seal on roles she made her own.

Her Norma, Nedda, Tosca, Turandot,
Santuzza, Leonora, Maddelena,
Mimì, Manon, Desdemona, Aida,
Cecilia and, above all, Violetta.

I hear the pathos of those portamentos,
those fleeting, floated pianissimos,
especially in those final arias
recorded just a year before her death.

Her passionate "Adio del passato,"
La Traviata's deathbed-scene farewell;
the poignancy revealed in that voice,
when she herself stood poised upon the void.

She left the world too suddenly, too soon;
ironic fate: a failure of the heart.	
Just her recorded legacy remains,
those faint mementos, faded memories.

Yet when my own day comes, perhaps I'll find
no more dividing me from La Divina.
For now I hear her darkly, through a glass,
but then-who knows?-in glory, face to face.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 7, 2019 -*

*Featured Artist - Beniamino Gigli*









*Beniamino Gigli Volume 1 1918-1924 - Part One -*

*Ponchielli - La Gioconda: "Cielo e mar" (Recorded 1918)*














*Cannio: O Surdato 'nnammurato (Recorded 1918)*














*Boito: Mefistofele - "Dai campi, dai prati" - (Recorded 1921)*






*Boito: Mefistofele - "Giunto sul passo estremo" - (Recorded 1921)*






"*Beniamino Gigli* (20 March 1890 - 30 November 1957) was an Italian opera singer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tenors of his generation."

"They called him the "Caruso Secondo," a title he disliked saying that he preferred to be known as the "Gigli Primo." In truth he was unlike Caruso in many ways, not least because Caruso's voice was larger, darker, and more dramatic with what Italians referred to as "squillo" - that full-bodied sound that is the hallmark of a spinto tenor and can thrill an audience."

"Early in his career, Gigli possessed a beautiful, soft and honey-like lyric voice, with incredible mezza-voice, allowing him to sing light, lyrical roles. As he grew older, his voice developed some dramatic qualities, enabling him to sing heavier roles like Aida and Tosca."

"Music critics, especially those outside Italy, often complained of his sloppy musicianship and careless interpretations, especially his habit of interjecting sobs at dramatic moments but, much like his later Italian counterpart Luciano Pavarotti, his overt emotionalism and the unequalled beauty of his voice delighted his fans and he is undoubtedly one of the very finest tenors in recorded history."

_"Some of the loveliest of all singing on record is heard here. By 1918 Gigli had been hailed as 'the tenor' in the land of tenors, and by 1921 he had come to be thought of as Caruso's successor in New York...The beauty of the voice emerges with clarity and presence; and all the transfers have been made from originals of the finest quality." _
- Gramophone


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I would be remiss if I didn't add Aureliano Pertile's name to the spectacular tenor list. Not only was he a fine tenor but a fantastic actor as well.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

nina foresti said:


> I would be remiss if I didn't add Aureliano Pertile's name to the spectacular tenor list. Not only was he a fine tenor but a fantastic actor as well.


Both "Pertile Edition Vol. 1 - The Young Pertile - The Acoustic Records" and "Pertile Edition, Vol. 2: Il Tenore di Toscanini" are in the pipeline and will be making a future appearance.

A sample from the following album -









*Verdi: Aida - "Celeste Aida" - Aureliano Pertile*














Thank you for your continued support - It is greatly appreciated!

- Duncan


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 8, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Rosa Ponselle*









*Rosa Ponselle Volume 1 1923-1939 - Part One -*

*Ponchielli: La Gioconda: "Suicidio" - Rosa Ponselle - (Recorded 1925)*














*Verdi: Otello - "Piangea cantando (The Willow Song)" - Rosa Ponselle - (Recorded 1924) -
*





*Verdi: Otello - "Ave Maria" - Rosa Ponselle - (Recorded 1924) -*














*Verdi: Aida - "Qui Radames verà!...O Patria mia" - Rosa Ponselle - 
(Recorded 1923) -*






*Verdi: Aida - "Pur ti riveggo" - Rosa Ponselle and Giovanni Martinelli - 
(Recorded 1924) - *














*Verdi: Ernani: "Surta è la notte...Ernani, involami" - Rosa Ponselle - (Recorded 1924) -*






"*Rosa Ponselle* (January 22, 1897 - May 25, 1981) was an American operatic soprano. 
She sang mainly at the New York Metropolitan Opera and is generally considered to have been one of the greatest sopranos of the 20th Century.

Rosa Ponselle made her Metropolitan Opera debut on November 15, 1918, just a few days after the Great War had finished, as Leonora in Verdi's La forza del destino, opposite Caruso. It was her first performance on any opera stage. She was quite intimidated for being in the presence of Caruso, and in spite of an almost paralyzing case of nervousness (which she suffered from throughout her operatic career), she scored a tremendous success, both with the public and with the critics. New York Times critic James Huneker wrote: "...what a promising debut! Added to her personal attractiveness, she possesses a voice of natural beauty that may prove a gold mine; it is vocal gold, anyhow, with its luscious lower and middle tones, dark, rich and ductile, brilliant in the upper register."

Martin Bernheimer, writing in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, had this to say about Ponselle's voice and recordings:

"Ponselle's voice is generally regarded as one of the most beautiful of the century. She was universally lauded for opulence of tone, evenness of scale, breadth of range, perfection of technique and communicative warmth. Many of these attributes are convincingly documented on recordings. In 1954 she made a few private song recordings, later released commercially, revealing a still opulent voice of darkened timbre and more limited range."

*Note:* Every effort will be made to match photographs with roles portrayed but substitutions will be made when the veracity of the claim made by the identification of the image is questionable.

- Duncan


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mollie John said:


> *Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles
> 
> for the day of October 8, 2019 -
> 
> ...


Allow me to add to this a selection by the fabulous Ponselle recorded in 1954, when she was 57 years old and long retired from opera, but in scarcely diminished voice:






And I can't resist adding what must be the greatest singing of "O Danny Boy" ever heard:






Even through the radio static of 1936 she can stand as a lesson in diction - and everything else - to singers today.


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## Scott in PA (Aug 13, 2016)

The tomb scene duet with Martinelli is legendary: the famous tenuto on _O terra addio_ - sometimes imitated, never quite equaled.

As for sheer vocal beauty, Ponselle is number one in my book.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Scott in PA said:


> The tomb scene duet with Martinelli is legendary: the famous tenuto on _O terra addio_ - sometimes imitated, never quite equaled.
> 
> As for sheer vocal beauty, Ponselle is number one in my book.











*Rosa Ponselle sings Verdi (1918-1928)*

*Rosa Ponselle (soprano), Giovanni Martinelli (tenor)

"La fatal pietra... O terra addio"

Recorded: 19th September, 1923*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 9, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Tito Schipa*









*Tito Schipa 1913-1937 - Part One -*

*Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana: "O Lola, c'hai di latti la cammisa ("Siciliana")" - (Recorded 1913)*














*Verdi: Rigoletto: "Ella mi fu rapita...Parmir veder le lagrime" -

(Recorded 1913)*














*Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor: "Tu che a Dio spiegasti l'ali" -

(Recorded 1913)*














*Leoncavallo: Pagliacci: "Serenata d'Arlecchino" - (Recorded 1922)*














*Massenet: Manon: "Il Sogno" - (Recorded 1922)*






*"Tito Schipa* (Italian pronunciation: [ˈskipa]; born Raffaele Attilio Amedeo Schipa; 2 January 1889 in Lecce - 16 December 1965) was an Italian tenor, considered the greatest tenore di grazia and one of the most popular tenors of the century.

Schipa had no grand voice nor exceptional beauty of timbre, it was rather the manner in which he employed it that captivated the audiences. He had no astounding high notes and limited therefore his repertory to a handful of operatic roles which he performed over and over again in a career that lasted for 55 years. His voice was subtle and light, capturing the shades and colors of the music, yet it reached in the great opera arenas by virtue of its great projection."

"Tito Schipa had something far more important than high notes: a great singing line. One of the most ingratiating of singers, with refined enunciation of text, elegant phrasing and superb musicianship, he held a prominent place in the light Italian romantic tenor repertoire during his long and successful career."
- Luis Eduardo Goncalves Gabarra

*Tito Schipa - Cilea - L'arlesiana -

"È la solita storia del pastore" - ("Lamento di Federico")*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 10, 2019 -*









*"Legendary Opera Duets" - Part One - *









*Bizet: Les Pêcheurs de Perles - "Au fond du temple saint" -

Marcel Journet and Edmond Clément - (Recorded 1912) -*






*"Marcel Journet* (25 July 1868 - 7 September 1933), was a French, bass, operatic singer. He enjoyed a prominent career in England, France and Italy, and appeared at the foremost American opera houses in New York City and Chicago.

He possessed a beautiful, cultured voice and a fine technique-hitting the absolute peak of his powers as a singer and an actor during the 1915-1925 period, during which time he became La Scala's principal bass."

"*Edmond Clément* (28 March 1867, Paris - 24 February 1928, Nice) was a French lyric tenor who earned an international reputation due to the polished artistry of his singing.

He was admired him for his stylish vocalism, exemplary diction and elegant stage presence. Although his voice was not large, he was considered to be one of the leading Roméos and Don Josés of his era by dint of his musicianship."









*Puccini: La Bohème - "O Soave Fanciulla" -

Enrico Caruso and Geraldine Farrar (Recorded 1912) -*






"*Enrico Caruso* (25 February 1873 - 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic.

One of the first major singing talents to be commercially recorded, Caruso made approximately 260 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920, which made him an international popular entertainment star.

Caruso's voice extended up to high D-flat in its prime and grew in power and weight as he grew older. At times, his voice took on a dark, almost baritonal coloration. He sang a broad spectrum of roles, ranging from lyric, to spinto, to dramatic parts, in the Italian and French repertoires. In the German repertoire, Caruso sang only two roles, Assad (in Karl Goldmark's The Queen of Sheba) and Richard Wagner's Lohengrin, both of which he performed in Italian in Buenos Aires in 1899 and 1901, respectively."

"*Alice Geraldine Farrar* (February 28, 1882 - March 11, 1967) was an American soprano opera singer and film actress, noted for her beauty, acting ability, and "the intimate timbre of her voice." She had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed "Gerry-flappers"."

"_Unlike most of the famous bel canto singers of the past who sacrificed dramatic action to tonal perfection, she was more interested in the emotional than in the purely lyrical aspects of her roles. According to Miss Farrar, until prime donne can combine the arts of Sarah Bernhardt and Nellie Melba, dramatic ability is more essential than perfect singing in opera._"
- Elizabeth Nash (biographer)









*(Jussi Björling, Hjördis Schymberg with conductor Tor Mann)*

*Verdi: Rigoletto: "È il sol dell'anima" -

Hjördis Schymberg and Jussi Björling - (Recorded 1941) -*






"*Hjördis Gunborg Schymberg* (April 24, 1909 - September 8, 2008) was a Swedish coloratura and lyric soprano active on the opera stage and in concert halls between 1934 and 1968.

She made her stage debut in 1934 as Berthe in a matinée performance of Adolphe Adam's comic opera La poupée de Nuremberg. Later that year she sang Mimì to Björling's Rodolfo for their 1934 role debuts in La bohème and went on to sing with him over 100 times, including his last performance in Stockholm in 1960.

She soon became one of the leading sopranos of the Royal Swedish Opera and also sang regularly in Copenhagen, Oslo, and Helsinki.

A review of her Met debut in The New York Times described her: _"Comely, petite and graceful, she was an ideal Susanna to the eye. Her impersonation was refined and filled with the spirit of youth. She brought the needed vivacity and sly humor to her interpretation and gave it real human appeal in a natural and unaffected way that won immediate favor with the large audience."_

"*Johan Jonatan "Jussi" Björling* (5 February 1911- 9 September 1960) was a Swedish tenor. One of the leading operatic singers of the 20th century, Björling appeared for many years at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and less frequently at the major European opera houses, including the Royal Opera House in London and La Scala in Milan."

"Almost from the beginning of his career, Jussi sang with a relaxed but perfect legato line, so effortless that it often seemed he was creating the music as he sang it. A quality of unforced naturalness, along with an absolute technical mastery, both taught him by his father, were the most notable aspects of Björling's artistry along with what was once described as "a voice heavy with unshed tears."

Note: There should be four photos accompanying this post but they are appearing and disappearing on a random basis due to issues with the server. If they fail to appear within the post they will be added as a separate post later.

- Duncan


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Speaking of the past, I am privileged to have a copy of the impossible to understand Mapleson Cylinders (circa 1910+) with the de Reszkes and Caruso, etc. It is a study in true concentration to listen with all the static in the background but I tell you if you are able to REALLY concentrate, you will get to hear most of their arias and they somehow prove that they had the right to be called fine opera singers.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> Speaking of the past, I am privileged to have a copy of the impossible to understand Mapleson Cylinders (circa 1910+) with the de Reszkes and Caruso, etc. It is a study in true concentration to listen with all the static in the background but I tell you if you are able to REALLY concentrate, you will get to hear most of their arias and they somehow prove that they had the right to be called fine opera singers.


By "copy" do you mean a recording? Those cylinders, some of which go back to 1901, were made in the wings during live performances at the Met. They're fascinating documents indeed, in lowest fidelity, often sounding like someone singing in the shower in a movie on the TV in the apartment next door. Still, as you say, there are glimpses of vocal glory.

There are quite a few of the Mapleson cylinders on YouTube, as well as some even older Edison cylinders. How's this for a trip in a time machine?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> By "copy" do you mean a recording? Those cylinders, some of which go back to 1901, were made in the wings during live performances at the Met. They're fascinating documents indeed, in lowest fidelity, often sounding like someone singing in the shower in a movie on the TV in the apartment next door. Still, as you say, there are glimpses of vocal glory.
> 
> There are quite a few of the Mapleson cylinders on YouTube, as well as some even older Edison cylinders. How's this for a trip in a time machine?


Yes, I mean that an opera friend made me a copy. By the way, your Edison recordings are heaven in comparison to the Maplesons which are almost unlistenable. You really must use concentration and then some. But what excitement when you distinguish the sounds.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 11, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Claudia Muzio*









*Claudia Muzio 1911-1935 - Part One -*

*Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana: "Voi lo sapete" - Claudia Muzio -

(Recorded 1934)*














*Buzzi-Peccia: "Colombetta" - Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1934) -*














*Verdi: La forza del destino: "Pace, pace mio Dio" - Claudia Muzio -

(Recorded 1935) -*














*Puccini: Tosca: "Vissi d'arte" - Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -
*













*Pergolesi: "Se tu m'ami" - Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






"*Claudia Muzio* (7 February 1889 - 24 May 1936) was an Italian operatic soprano who enjoyed an international career during the early 20th century.

Muzio made her operatic début in Arezzo (15 January 1910) in the title role of Massenet's Manon, and despite her youth she made rapid progress in the opera houses of Italy, leading to débuts at La Scala in Milan in 1913 (as Desdemona in Verdi's Otello), in Paris (as Desdemona) and in London at Covent Garden (as Puccini's Manon Lescaut) in 1914; she stayed on in London to sing other roles including Mimì and Tosca (both with Caruso).

She was invited to the Met in New York in December 1916 (for Tosca) and was so successful that she continued to appear there during six successive years. It was at the Metropolitan that Muzio created the role of Giorgetta in Il tabarro, in the world première of Puccini's triple bill, Il trittico, on 14 December 1918.

She established a special relationship with audiences at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, where she first appeared in June 1919 (in Catalani's Loreley). From then until 1934 she sang there in 23 different operas, becoming known as "la divina Claudia". Between 1922 and 1932, she appeared regularly in Chicago (after falling out with the management at the New York Met).

Muzio was noted for the beauty and warmth of her voice, which, although not particularly large, acquired a considerable richness of tonal colouring as she grew older. Her performances were sometimes criticised for excessive use of dynamic extremes, including her exquisitely expressive pianissimo singing."


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Mollie John said:


> *Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles
> 
> for the day of October 11, 2019 -
> 
> ...


Divine Claudia.

I assume you know this performance of Donaudy's _O del mio amato ben_. It's not the greatest music in the world, but Muzio makes it into a thing of sighs and loveliness. Just beautiful.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Divine Claudia.
> 
> I assume you know this performance of Donaudy's _O del mio amato ben_. It's not the greatest music in the world, but Muzio makes it into a thing of sighs and loveliness. Just beautiful.


I need to keep tissues handy when I listen to Muzio!

There's a splendid repertoire of Italian song from the late 19th century of which this is representative. Its composer, Stefano Donaudy (1879-1925), was a serious composer of opera who never achieved the success in that genre that he did in song. Apparently he was so devastated by the failure of one of his operas that he stopped composing and died in his forties. "O del mio amato ben" comes from his collection titled _Arie de Stile Antico_, which also includes "Vaghissima sembianza," memorably sung by Caruso:






Tito Schipa made his own typically beautiful, and beautifully enunciated, recording of "O del mio amato ben":






Another recording of Italian art song I particularly love is Muzio's incomparable interpretation of Lincinio Refice's "Ombra di nube," in which we hear her incredibly expressive pianissimi:






Francesco Paolo Tosti (1846-1916) composed many popular songs which have been recorded by numerous opera singers right down to the present. Here is his "Ideale" sung by the "King of Baritones," Mattia Battistini, in 1911:






And then there's Caruso, bestowing the full splendor of his voice and heart on Stanislao Gastaldon's "Musica proibita":


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> I need to keep tissues handy when I listen to Muzio!
> 
> There's a splendid repertoire of Italian song from the late 19th century of which this is representative. Its composer, Stefano Donaudy (1879-1925), was a serious composer of opera who never achieved the success in that genre that he did in song. Apparently he was so devastated by the failure of one of his operas that he stopped composing and died in his forties. "O del mio amato ben" comes from his collection titled _Arie de Stile Antico_, which also includes "Vaghissima sembianza," memorably sung by Caruso:
> 
> ...


My grateful thanks to you for providing the kinds of thoughtful and insightful contributions which are the result of the expertise gained through years of careful and critical listening thus enhancing and illuminating the subject matter in ways which are beyond the ken of neophytes such as myself -

:tiphat:

- Duncan


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 12, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Alessandro Bonci*









*Alessandro Bonci - The Fonotipia recordings 1905-1907 - Part One - *

*Bellini: I Puritani: "A te, o cara" - Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1905) -*














*Donizetti: La Favorita - "Una vergine, un angiol di Dio" - Alessandro Bonci -

(Recorded 1905) -*






*Donizetti: La Favorita - "Spirto gentil" - Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1905) *














*Donizetti: Don Pasquale - "Cercherò lontana terra" - Alessandro Bonci -

(Recorded 1907) -*














*Donizetti: Don Pasquale - "Tornami a dir" -

Alessandro Bonci and Regina Pinkert - (Recorded 1905) -*






"*Alessandro Bonci* (February 10, 1870 - August 9, 1940) was an Italian lyric tenor known internationally for his association with the bel canto repertoire. He sang at many famous theatres, including New York's Metropolitan Opera, Milan's La Scala and London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Bonci was active at the end of the 19th century, a period euphemistically referred to as the 'Golden Age'. He belonged to a distinguished group of tenori di grazia, held to be the epitome of the 'Bel Canto' style of singing, which included Fernando De Lucia, Giuseppe Anselmi, Fernando Carpi, Giuseppe Krismer, Carlo Dani, Manfredi Polverosi and Elvino Ventura. For both audiences and singers of this generation priority was given to elegance of declamation combined with an ease of vocal emission and fine control of dynamics.

Bonci was a demure man and his voice was not overly large. It was sweet-toned, stylish and supple, with excellent high notes and an easy high C. He sang with what at the time would have been considered a standard vibrato.

*Regina Pinkert* (1869-1931) was a Polish opera singer and soprano. She first came to attention in the United States when appearing at the Metropolitan Opera House for the 1906-07 season."


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 13, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Emmy Destinn*









*Emmy Destinn 1907-1921*









*Wagner: Tannhäuser, WWV. 70: 'Dich teure Halle' - Emmy Destinn -

(Recorded 1908) -*














*Wagner: Der fliegende Hollander, WWV. 63: "Ballad der Senta" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1907) -*














*Wagner: Lohengrin, WWV. 75: "Einsam in trüben Tagen" - Emmy Destinn -

(Recorded 1907) -*














*Strauss, R: Salome - "Jokanaan ich bin verliebt" - Emmy Destinn -

(Recorded 1907) -*






*Strauss, R: Salome - "Dein Haar ist grasslich" - Emmy Destinn -

(Recorded 1907) -*






*"Emmy Destinn* (Ema Destinnová); (26 February 1878 - 28 January 1930) was a Czech operatic soprano with a strong and soaring lyric-dramatic voice. She had a career both in Europe and at the New York Metropolitan Opera.

Her fame became international in 1901 when she was invited to sing the part of Senta in Der Fliegende Holländer at Germany's Bayreuth Festspielhaus.

Destinn made her London debut at Covent Garden on 2 May 1904 in Don Giovanni singing Donna Anna to Renaud's elegant Don. She appeared there in several operas for the next two seasons, including the London premiere of Madama Butterfly with Caruso.

Hermann Klein, that doyen of London critics, commented that "another rich soprano of the Tietjens and Lucca type; Destinn is an actress of consummate ability, a splendid Mozart singer, in a word, the admirable, very nearly perfect Donna Anna, and with no lack of 'freshness' in her round and penetrating Tones".

While she was highly successful in the lighter roles of Wagner's operas, her spinto voice-although large in size, with a ringing top register-was better suited to German music of a less declamatory type. She also excelled in the French part of Carmen, in which she was said to rival Calvé, and in the Italian roles of Aida, Madama Butterfly and Leonora (in Il trovatore)."


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 14, 2019 -*









*Great Opera Ensembles - Part One - *









*(Pictured: Amelita Galli-Curci)*

*Verdi: Rigoletto: Act IV, "Bella figlia dell'amore" - (Recorded 1927) - *

*Giuseppe de Luca, Beniamino Gigli, Louise Homer, Amelita Galli-Curci*














*(Pictured: Helge Rosvaenge)*

*Flotow: Martha: "Mag der Himmel Euch vergeben" - (Recorded 1928)*

*Rudolf Watzke, Helge Rosvaenge, Emmy Leisner, Hedwig Debicka*














*(Pictured: Pia Tassinari)*

*Puccini: La Bohème - "Dunque è proprio finita" - (Recorded 1943) - *

*Enzo Mascherini, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Maria Huder, Pia Tassinari*














*(Pictured: Aureliano Pertile)*

*Verdi: Il trovatore: Act II, "Ah! se I'error t'ingombra" - (Recorded 1930) -*

*Bruno Carmassi, Apollo Granforte, Maria Carena, Aureliano Pertile*


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 15, 2019 -

Featured Artist - César Vezzani*









*César Vezzani 1912-1925 - Part One -*









*Meyerbeer: Le Pardon de Ploermel: "Les blés sont beaux" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Meyerbeer: L'Africaine: "Pays mervelleux" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1912) -*














*Meyerbeer: Le Prophete - "Pour Berthe moi, je soupier" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Meyerbeer: Le Prophete - "Roi du Ciel et des Anges" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1924)*














*Halévy: La Juive: "Rachel quand du Seigneur" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1924) *






"*César Vezzani* (8 August 1888 - 11 November 1951) was a French/Corsican operatic tenor who became a leading exponent of French grand opera through several decades.

Vezzani was a true tenor-fort, equivalent of the Italian lyrico-spinto, and therefore assigned the demi-caractère rôles which demand a wide vocal range. In addition Vezzani's brilliant top notes place him firmly in a line of French dramatic tenors who can claim their heritage from Gilbert-Louis Duprez (1806-1896).

Critics have shown universal recognition of the exceptional quality of Vezzani's voice, though they have sometimes expressed reservations about the subtlety of his approach, which was generally robust.

His recording of Faust has occasioned the following comments: "Vezzani is a noble representative of that vanished breed, the French spinto tenor... Unforced lyricism was not Vezzani's greatest strength... [but] where ringing excitement is called for, his only equals are Caruso and, more recently, Franco Corelli."

Referring to his recording of excerpts from Roméo et Juliette, another critic has said: "He was a real ténor de force and still singing well at sixty. There is little nuance here, but the voice is healthy and brilliant, somehow typically Corsican."

Reflecting on the fact that Vezzani's career did not take him to the world's major opera houses, another has said: "He seems to be one of those whose gifts exceeded his attainments." The generous attention that he received from recording companies allows later generations to form their own judgments."


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 16, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Antonina Nezhdanova*









*Antonina Nezhdanova 1906-1939*









*Gounod: Roméo et Juliette: "Je veux vivre dans ce rêve" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1906) -*














*Wagner: Lohengrin - "Einsam in trüben Tagen" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1910) -*






*Wagner: Lohengrin - "Euch Lüften die mein Klagen" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1910) -*






*Wagner: Lohengrin - "Das süsse Lied verhallt" -

Antonina Nezhdanova and Leonid Sobinov - (Recorded 1910) -*














*Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia - "Una voce poco fa" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1913) - *






*"Antonina Vasilievna Nezhdanova* 16 June [OS 4 June] 1873 - 26 June 1950), was a Russian lyric coloratura soprano.

An outstanding opera singer, she represented the Russian vocal school at its best.

*Leonid Sobinov* June 7 [OS May 26] 1872 - October 14, 1934), was an acclaimed Imperial Russian operatic tenor. His fame continued unabated into the Soviet era, and he was made a People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1923.

Sobinov's voice was lyrical in size and tone, and it was employed with discerning taste and excellent musicianship."

Please note that browser compatibility issues are affecting this thread. If the photographs are not appearing when you access this post please click on the .jpeg extension that you will find located throughout the post and the photographs will appear in a pop-up window.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

These singers are coming at me too fast. I can't keep up!


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> These singers are coming at me too fast. I can't keep up!


Take them at your own pace - however leisurely that may be - they will always be here patiently waiting for their audience to return. One of the advantages of dating the posts is the convenience of knowing where you left off - return when you can - Enjoy!


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> These singers are coming at me too fast. I can't keep up!


In retrospect this is a genuinely valid criticism and thus I've decided to make a conscious effort to reduce the number of selections per day from 5 to 3 as I would like this thread to be a place that others look forward to rather than come to dread as they fall further and further behind in their listening.

:tiphat: - Once again, allow me to extend my thanks for providing the kind of feedback that will improve the thread!

- Duncan


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 17, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Antonio Cortis*









*Antonio Cortis 1925-1930*









*Verdi: Rigoletto - "Questa o quella" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1930) -*






*Verdi: Rigoletto - "Ella mi fu rapita...Parmir veder le lagrime" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1930) -*






*Verdi: Rigoletto - "La donna è mobile" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1930) -*






"*Antonio Cortis* (12 August 1891 - 2 April 1952) was a Spanish tenor with an outstanding voice. He was acclaimed by audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for his exciting performances of Italian operatic works, especially those by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and the verismo composers.

Cortis came to be regarded as one of the best inter-war interpreters of verismo opera. He was particularly praised for his performances of Calaf and of Dick Johnson in Puccini's La fanciulla del West, while he sang with remarkable ease the strenuous music composed for the tenor voice by Umberto Giordano and Pietro Mascagni. Cortis also undertook Verdi roles, such as the Duke in Rigoletto, which he delivered with impressive skill and style.

Music critics consider his potent, dark-coloured voice to be one of the finest lyric-dramatic tenor instruments ever captured on disc. No mere 'belter', he sang with imagination and sound musicianship as well as thrilling tone."


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## 89Koechel (Nov 25, 2017)

Duncan - Many thanks for reminding many of us, about those fine VOICES, of the past. Also, thanks for mentioning the "Borlange fellow" - Jussi Bjorling ... who still stands as one of the most-ENDURING of the great vocalists, of any time. If anyone wants to mention the THREE GREATEST tenors of all, and does NOT mention Jussi B, well, then they're truly mistaken. Geez, has anyone mentioned Lauritz Melchior, or Georges Thill, or Alexander Kipnis, Lotte Lehmann, Helen Traubel, Ezio Pinza, Schlusnus and many others, by now? Obviously not, but am sure these great people will come-up, in the future. .... Also, thanks for mentioning Vezzani, who was a cornerstone of a great, "old" recording of Gounod's "Faust", in the past.


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

89Koechel said:


> Duncan - Geez, has anyone mentioned Lauritz Melchior, or Georges Thill, or Alexander Kipnis, Lotte Lehmann, Helen Traubel, Ezio Pinza, Schlusnus and many others, by now?


Thank you for the kind words and for your support of the thread - each of the names that you've mentioned are in the pipeline and will be making appearances in the near future.

Kind regards -

Duncan


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 18, 2019 -*









*Age Of Bel Canto*









*Handel: Allesandro: "Lusinghe più caro" -

Marcella Sembrich - (Recording date - approximately 1910) -*






"*Marcella Sembrich* (February 15, 1858 - January 11, 1935) was the stage name of the Polish coloratura soprano, Prakseda Marcelina Kochańska. She had an important international singing career, chiefly at the New York Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London."









*Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail, K384 - "Martern aller Arten" -

Maria Ivogün - (Recorded 1919) -*






*"Maria Ivogün* (18 November 1891 in Budapest - 3 October 1987 in Beatenberg, Switzerland) was a distinguished soprano singer of Hungarian origin. She was especially an outstanding interpreter of the works of Mozart: her recording of the aria of the Queen of the Night (Die Zauberflöte) became legendary."









*Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro - "Voi che sapete" -

Dame Nellie Melba - (Recorded 1910) -*






*"Dame Nellie Melba* GBE (born Helen Porter Mitchell; 19 May 1861 - 23 February 1931) was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early 20th century, and was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician. She took the pseudonym "Melba" from Melbourne, her home town."


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 19, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Amelita Galli-Curci*









*Amelita Galli-Curci Volume 1 1917-1924 - Part One -*









*Gounod: Roméo et Juliette: "Je veux vivre dans ce rêve" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1917) -*






*Auber: Manon Lescaut - "C'est l'histoire amoureuse" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1917) -*






*Rossini:Il barbiere di Siviglia - "Una voce poco fa" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1917) -*






"*Amelita Galli-Curci *(18 November 1882 - 26 November 1963) was an Italian coloratura soprano. She was one of the most popular operatic singers of the 20th century, with her recordings selling in large numbers."


----------



## 89Koechel (Nov 25, 2017)

Mollie - Thanks for more from (the aforementioned) "pipeline", now including Ms. Galli-Curci. I still like her duets, with the inimitable tenor, Tito Schipa. Well, Schipa IS included in your previous post (and the "Age of Bel Canto"). Also, I think you're in Canada, so any possibility of including the late, Jon Vickers? His Heldentenor was DISTINCTIVE, and so-fine ... in Fidelio, Don Carlos, etc.


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

89Koechel said:


> Thanks for more from (the aforementioned) "pipeline", now including Ms. Galli-Curci. I still like her duets, with the inimitable tenor, Tito Schipa. Well, Schipa IS included in your previous post (and the "Age of Bel Canto"). Also, I think you're in Canada, so any possibility of including the late, Jon Vickers? His Heldentenor was DISTINCTIVE, and so-fine ... in Fidelio, Don Carlos, etc.


Thank you for your kind words but despite my willingness to always fly the colours I'm afraid that the chronology of the thread will generally stop at the 1950 mark (with certain exceptions for artists whose later and often last works end within the decade).

- Duncan


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 20, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Giacomo Lauri-Volpi*









*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi 1922-1942 - Part One*

*Bellini: I Puritani: "A te, o cara" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1922) -*






*Boito: Mefistofele: "Giunto sul passo estremo" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1922) -*






*Massenet: Werther: "Ah! Tutto il cor è qui...Ah! Non mi ridestar" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1922) -*














"*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi* (11 December 1892 - 17 March 1979) was an Italian tenor with a lyric-dramatic voice of exceptional range and technical facility. He performed throughout Europe and the Americas in a top-class career that spanned 40 years.

It has become common to divide Lauri-Volpi's career into three stages; an early bel canto period coinciding with his first five to ten active years with an emphasis on the melodic line and phrasing with superb legato and a well integrated top register.

A second period was slightly emerging by the end of the 30's where he developed his inherent spinto qualities, and appeared in more vocally demanding roles, adding more drama and weight to his singing. He eventually also became known for abusing his voice, with exuberant, open high notes and singing with much pathos in taxing repertory (he became a widely acclaimed Otello [Verdi] and Arnoldo of Guglielmo Tell [Rossini], after having performed at La Scala in 1929 in the centenary production of the latter).

When he thus reappeared on the international scene in the late 40's, considered the third stage of his career, he had changed vocally with notable less beauty and a much less integrated voice. He had maintained his brilliant and thrilling top notes, but had also begun to employ them in a heavily driven, detached manner, having wiped out his early and youthful bel canto standards. Nevertheless, his singing was still spectacular and he became the epitome of longevity. At the age of 81 he surprised the operatic world by releasing a recital recording of operatic arias."


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the Day of October 21, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Ernestine Schumann-Heink*









*Ernestine Schumann-Heink 1906-1929 - Part One - *









*Donizetti: Lucrezia Borgia: "Il segreto per esser felici" -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Arditi: "Leggero Invisibile" -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1907) -*






*Konstantin Julius Becker: "Frühlingszeit" -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1907) -*






"*Ernestine Schumann-Heink* (15 June 1861 - 17 November 1936) was a Czech-born German-American operatic contralto of German Bohemian descent.[1] She was noted for the size, beauty, tonal richness, flexibility and wide range of her voice.

She performed with Gustav Mahler at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, and became well known for her performances of the works of Richard Wagner at Bayreuth, singing at the Bayreuth Festivals from 1896 to 1914."


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 22, 2019 -*









*The Sopranos - Part Two -*









*Verdi: La forza del destino: "La Vergine degli angeli" -

Rosa Ponselle and Ezio Pinza - (Recorded 1928) -*






"*Rosa Ponselle* (January 22, 1897 - May 25, 1981) was an American operatic soprano. 
She sang mainly at the New York Metropolitan Opera and is generally considered to have been one of the greatest sopranos of the 20th Century."









*Verdi: Otello - "Ave Maria" -

Elisabeth Rethberg - (Recorded 1930)*






*Elisabeth Rethberg* (22 September 1894 - 6 June 1976) was a German soprano of international repute active from the period of the First World War through to the early 1940s."









*Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice: "Che puro ciel" -

Kathleen Ferrier - (Recording Date Unknown)*






"*Kathleen Mary Ferrier*, CBE (22 April 1912 - 8 October 1953[1]) was an English contralto singer who achieved an international reputation as a stage, concert and recording artist, with a repertoire extending from folksong and popular ballads to the classical works of Bach, Brahms, Mahler and Elgar.









*Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro: "Deh! vieni, non tardar" -

Toti Dal Monte - (Recording Date Unknown)*






"*Antonietta Meneghel *(27 June 1893 - 26 January 1975), better known by her stage name *Toti Dal Monte*, was a celebrated Italian operatic soprano.


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 23, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Beniamino Gigli*









*Beniamino Gigli Volume 1 1918-1924 - Part Two - *









*Puccini: Tosca - "Recondita armonia" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1921) -*






*Puccini: Tosca - "E lucevan le stelle" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1921) -*






*Puccini: Tosca - "O dolci mani" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1922) -*






"*Beniamino Gigli * (20 March 1890 - 30 November 1957 was an Italian opera singer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tenors of his generation.

In 1914, he won first prize in an international singing competition in Parma. His operatic debut came on 15 October 1914, when he played Enzo in Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda in Rovigo, following which he was in great demand.

Gigli made many important debuts in quick succession, and always in Mefistofele: Teatro Massimo in Palermo (31 March 1915), Teatro di San Carlo in Naples (26 December 1915), Teatro Costanzi di Roma (26 December 1916), La Scala, Milan (19 November 1918) and finally the Metropolitan Opera, New York City (26 November 1920)."


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 24, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Rosa Ponselle *









*Rosa Ponselle Volume 1 1923-1939 - Part Two - *









*Spontini: La Vestale - "Tu che invoco" -

Rosa Ponselle - (Recorded 1926) -*






*Spontini: La Vestale - "O Nume tutelar" -

Rosa Ponselle - (Recorded 1926) -*






*Verdi: La forza del destino: Alzatevi...La Vergine degli Angeli -

Rosa Ponselle and Ezio Pinza - (Recorded 1928)*






*Rosa Ponselle* (January 22, 1897 - May 25, 1981) was an American operatic soprano. 
She sang mainly at the New York Metropolitan Opera and is generally considered to have been one of the greatest sopranos of the 20th Century.

Outside the USA, Ponselle sang only at Covent Garden in London (for three seasons) and in Italy (in order, so she said, to honor a promise she had made to her mother that she would one day sing in Italy).

In 1929, Ponselle made her European debut in London, at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. Up until that time, her career had been concentrated entirely in America. Ponselle sang two roles at Covent Garden in 1929: Norma and Gioconda. She had great success and was tumultuously acclaimed by the normally staid London audiences.

She returned to London in 1930 in Norma, L'amore dei tre re, and La traviata (her first performances as Violetta). In her final London season in 1931, she sang in La forza del destino, Fedra (an opera by her coach and long-time friend, Romano Romani), and a reprise of La traviata.


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 25, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Tito Schipa*









*Tito Schipa 1913-1937 - Part Two -*









*Donizetti: Don Pasquale: "Tornami a dir" -

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1922) -*






*Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia: "Se il mio nome" -

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Ambroise Thomas: Mignon - "Addio, Mignon" -

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Ambroise Thomas: Mignon - "Ah! Non credevi tu" -

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1924) -*






"*Tito Schipa* (Italian pronunciation: [ˈskipa]; born Raffaele Attilio Amedeo Schipa; 2 January 1889 in Lecce - 16 December 1965) was an Italian tenor, considered the greatest tenore di grazia and one of the most popular tenors of the century.

Schipa was born as Raffaele Attilio Amedeo Schipa on 27 December 1888 in Lecce in Apulia into an Arbëreshë family; his birthday was recorded as January 2, 1889 for military conscription purposes. He studied in Milan and made his operatic debut at age 21 in 1910 at Vercelli. He subsequently appeared throughout Italy and in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1917, he created the role of Ruggiero in Puccini's La rondine.

In 1919, Schipa traveled to the United States, joining the Chicago Opera Company. He remained with the Chicago company until 1932, whereupon he appeared at the New York Metropolitan Opera from 1932 to 1935, and again in 1941. He also sang at the San Francisco Opera, beginning in 1924.

From 1929 to 1949 he performed regularly in Italy, including at La Scala, Milan and the Rome Opera. He returned to Buenos Aires to sing in 1954. In 1957, he toured the Soviet Union.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 26, 2019 -

"Legendary Opera Duets" - Part Two - *

















*Purcell: The Indian Queen: "Let us wander not unseen" -

Kathleen Ferrier and Isobel Baillie - (Recorded 1945) -*






*Kathleen Mary Ferrier*, CBE (22 April 1912 - 8 October 1953[1]) was an English contralto singer who achieved an international reputation as a stage, concert and recording artist, with a repertoire extending from folksong and popular ballads to the classical works of Bach, Brahms, Mahler and Elgar.

*Dame Isobel Baillie*, DBE (9 March 1895 - 24 September 1983) was a Scottish soprano, popular in opera, oratorio and lieder. She was regarded as one of the 20th century's great oratorio singers.









*Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer - "Auf hohem Felsen lag ich" -

Irmgard Langhammer and Franz Völker - (Recorded 1941) -*






*Franz Völker* (March 31, 1899, Neu-Isenburg, Grand Duchy of Hesse - December 4, 1965, Darmstadt, Hesse) was a dramatic tenor who enjoyed a major European career. He excelled specifically as a performer of the operas of Richard Wagner.









*Puccini: La Bohème - "O Mimi tu piu non torni" -

Beniamino Gigli and Giuseppe de Luca - (Recorded 1927) -*






*Beniamino Gigli* (20 March 1890 - 30 November 1957) was an Italian opera singer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tenors of his generation.

*Giuseppe De Luca* (25 December 1876 - 26 August 1950), was an Italian baritone who achieved his greatest triumphs at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. He notably created roles in the world premieres of two operas by Giacomo Puccini: Sharpless in Madama Butterfly (at La Scala, Milan, 1904) and the title role in Gianni Schicchi (Metropolitan Opera, 1918).









*Verdi: La forza del destino: "Solenne in quest'ora" -

Riccardo Stracciari and Charles Hackett - (Recording 1919) -*






*Riccardo Stracciari *(June 26, 1875 - October 10, 1955) was a leading Italian baritone. His repertoire consisted mainly of Italian operatic works, with Rossini's Figaro and Verdi's Rigoletto becoming his signature roles during a long and distinguished career which stretched from 1899 to 1944.

*Charles Hackett* (November 4, 1889 - January 1, 1942) sometimes referred to as Carlo Hackett, was an American tenor.


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 27, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Claudia Muzio -*









*Claudia Muzio 1911-1935 - Part Two - *









*Giordano: Andrea Chénier: "La mamma morte" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






*Puccini: La Bohème - "Si, mi chiamano Mimì" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






*Puccini: La Bohème - "Donde lieta usci" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






"*Claudia Muzio* (7 February 1889 - 24 May 1936) was an Italian operatic soprano who enjoyed an international career during the early 20th century.

Muzio made her operatic début in Arezzo (15 January 1910) in the title role of Massenet's Manon, and despite her youth she made rapid progress in the opera houses of Italy, leading to débuts at La Scala in Milan in 1913 (as Desdemona in Verdi's Otello), in Paris (as Desdemona) and in London at Covent Garden (as Puccini's Manon Lescaut) in 1914; she stayed on in London to sing other roles including Mimì and Tosca (both with Caruso).

She was invited to the Met in New York in December 1916 (for Tosca) and was so successful that she continued to appear there during six successive years. It was at the Metropolitan that Muzio created the role of Giorgetta in Il tabarro, in the world première of Puccini's triple bill, Il trittico, on 14 December 1918."


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 28, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Alessandro Bonci*









*Alessandro Bonci - The Fonotipia recordings 1905-1907 - Part Two *-









*Donizetti: Lucrezia Borgia: "Di pescatore ignobile" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor - "Tombe degli avi…Fra poco a me ricovero"

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor - "Tu che a Dio" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Donizetti: L'Elisir d'Amore: "Una furtiva lagrima" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1905) -*






"*Alessandro Bonci *(February 10, 1870 - August 9, 1940) was an Italian lyric tenor known internationally for his association with the bel canto repertoire. He sang at many famous theatres, including New York's Metropolitan Opera, Milan's La Scala and London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

On December 3, 1906, Bonci made his American debut with the Manhattan Opera Company in New York City; again the opera was I Puritani. He stayed two seasons with the company, becoming a popular competitor to Enrico Caruso, who was the rival Metropolitan Opera's major drawcard. Bonci himself joined the Metropolitan Opera in 1908 and, in 1914, the Chicago Opera. He also made a transcontinental tour of America in 1910-11, giving song recitals."


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 29, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Emmy Destinn*









*Emmy Destinn 1907-1921 - Part Two - *









*Puccini: Madama Butterfly - "Tu,tu piccolo iddio" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1908) -*






*Puccini: Madama Butterfly - "Un bel dì vedremo" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1908) -*






*Smetana: Dalibor, JB 1:101: Jak je mi (War es wahr) -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1908) -*






"*Emmy Destinn* (Ema Destinnová) - (26 February 1878 - 28 January 1930) was a Czech operatic soprano with a strong and soaring lyric-dramatic voice. She had a career both in Europe and at the New York Metropolitan Opera.

Destinn made her London debut at Covent Garden's Royal Opera House on 2 May 1904, as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. She appeared there in several operas for the next two seasons, including the London premiere of Madama Butterfly with Caruso. Her Metropolitan Opera debut came in 1908 with an acclaimed performance of Aida, after she was released from her contract with the Berlin Court Opera. Two years later at the Met, she created the role of Minnie in the premiere of Puccini's La fanciulla del West, again opposite Caruso, and under the direction of Arturo Toscanini.

While she was highly successful in the lighter roles of Wagner's operas, her spinto voice-although large in size, with a ringing top register-was better suited to German music of a less declamatory type. She also excelled in the French part of Carmen, in which she was said to rival Calvé, and in the Italian roles of Aida, Madama Butterfly and Leonora (in Il trovatore)."


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 30, 2019 -*









*Great Opera Ensembles - Part Two - *









*(Pictured: Enrico Caruso and Frida Hempel)*

*Verdi: Un ballo in maschera: Act I, "Amici miei, soldati" -

Andrès de Segurola, Léon Rothier, Enrico Caruso, Frida Hempel -

(Recorded - 1914) -
*













*(Pictured: Tancredi Pasero)*

*Verdi: La forza del destino: Act IV, "Non imprecare, umiliati" -

Tancredi Pasero, Francesco Merli, Bianca Scacciati -

(Recorded 1929) -*














*(Pictured: Giacomo Lauri-Volpi)*

*Verdi: Aida: Act III, "Ciel, mio padre" -

Giuseppe de Luca, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, Elisabeth Rethberg -

(Recorded - 1930) -*














*(Pictured: Jussi Björling)*

*Verdi: La traviata: Act II, "Ogni suo aver tal femmina" -

Conny Molin, Hjördis Schymberg, Jussi Björling -

(Recorded - 1939) -*


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of October 31, 2019 -

Featured Artist - César Vezzani*









*César Vezzani 1912-1925 - Part Two -*









*Gounod: La Reine du Saba: "Faiblesse de la race humaine…Inspirez moi" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Saint-Saëns: Samson et Dalila - "Arrétez o mes frères" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Saint-Saëns: Samson et Dalila - "Israël romps ta chaîne" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1925) -*






*César Vezzani *(8 August 1888 - 11 November 1951) was a French/Corsican operatic tenor who became a leading exponent of French grand opera through several decades.

Critics have shown universal recognition of the exceptional quality of Vezzani's voice, though they have sometimes expressed reservations about the subtlety of his approach, which was generally robust.


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 1, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Antonina Nezhdanova*









*Antonina Nezhdanova 1906-1939 - Part Two -*









*Bellini: I Puritani: "Qui la voce sua soave…Viens diletto" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Verdi: La Traviata: "Addio del passato" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1910) -*






*Grieg: Solveig's Song (from Peer Gynt) -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1906) -*






"*Antonina Vasilievna Nezhdanova* (16 June [O.S. 4 June] 1873[1] - 26 June 1950), was a Russian lyric coloratura soprano. An outstanding opera singer, she represented the Russian vocal school at its best.

Nezhdanova was born in Kryva Balka, near Odessa, Ukraine, then in the Russian Empire. In 1899, she entered the Moscow Conservatory. Upon her graduation three years later she joined the Bolshoi Theatre, rapidly becoming its leading soprano. She often sang, too, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg and also in Kiev and Odessa. Paris heard her in 1912, when she appeared opposite the great tenor Enrico Caruso and Caruso's baritone equivalent, Titta Ruffo."


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 2, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Antonio Cortis*









*Antonio Cortis 1925-1930 - Part Two -*









*Verdi: Il Trovatore: "Ah si, ben mio...Di quella pira" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1930) -
*






*Bizet: Carmen: "La fleur que tu m'avais jetée" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1929) -*






*Gounod: Faust: "Salve, dimora casta e pura" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1930) -*






"*Antonio Cortis* (12 August 1891 - 2 April 1952) was a Spanish tenor with an outstanding voice. He was acclaimed by audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for his exciting performances of Italian operatic works, especially those by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and the verismo composers.

He made his stage debut in 1912 at the Liceo in Barcelona as a comprimario singer, but he gradually worked his way up to major roles at a variety of opera houses in Spain and South America, including the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. On the South American tour of 1917, the young tenor was befriended by the Metropolitan Opera star Enrico Caruso, who encouraged him to pursue his singing career in New York City. Cortis declined Caruso's offer of help due to personal reasons but he would henceforth model his singing technique on Caruso's great example."


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 3, 2019 -*









*Age Of Bel Canto - Part Two -*









*Gluck: Alceste "Divinités du Styx" -

Helen Traubel - (Recorded 1940) -*














*Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia - "Una voce poco fa" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1917) -*














*Rossini: La Cenerentola - "Nacqui all'affanno, al pianto...Non più mesta"

Conchita Supervia - (Recorded 1927) -*


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 4, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Amelita Galli-Curci*









*Amelita Galli-Curci Volume 1 1917-1924 - Part Two -*









*Meyerbeer: Dinorah: "Ombre légère" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1917) -*






*Bellini: I Puritani: "Qui la voce sua soave" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1917) -*






*Ambroise Thomas: Mignon: "Io son Titania" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1919) -*






*Amelita Galli-Curci* (18 November 1882 - 26 November 1963) was an Italian coloratura soprano. She was one of the most popular operatic singers of the 20th century, with her recordings selling in large numbers.

Galli-Curci made her operatic debut in 1906 at Trani, as Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, and she rapidly became acclaimed throughout Italy for the sweetness and agility of her voice and her captivating musical interpretations. She was seen by many critics as an antidote to the host of squally, verismo-oriented sopranos then populating Italian opera houses.

The soprano had toured widely in Europe, Russia and South America. In 1915, she sang two performances of Lucia di Lammermoor with Enrico Caruso in Buenos Aires. These were to be her only operatic appearances with the great tenor, though they later appeared in concert and made a few recordings together. Galli-Curci and Caruso also acted as godparents for the son of the Sicilian tenor Giulio Crimi.

Galli-Curci toured extensively throughout her career, including a 1924 Great Britain concert tour (She never sang in an opera there), where she appeared in 20 cities and a tour of Australia a year later."


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of Movember 5, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Giacomo Lauri-Volpi*









*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi 1922-1942 - Part Two -*









*Puccini: Tosca: "Recondita armonia" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1922) -*






*Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana - "Viva il vino spumeggiante" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana - "Addio alla madre" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi* (11 December 1892 - 17 March 1979) was an Italian tenor with a lyric-dramatic voice of exceptional range and technical facility. He performed throughout Europe and the Americas in a top-class career that spanned 40 years.

Born in Lanuvio, Italy, he was orphaned at the age of 11. After completing his secondary education at the seminary at Albano and graduating from the University of Rome La Sapienza, he began vocal studies under the great 19th-century baritone Antonio Cotogni at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

His nascent singing career was put on hold, however, by the outbreak of World War I in 1914, during which he served with the Italian armed forces and emerged as one of Italy's most decorated soldiers. The war over, he made a successful operatic debut as Arturo in Bellini's I Puritani in Viterbo, Italy, on 2 September 1919-performing under the name Giacomo Rubini, after Bellini's favorite tenor, Giovanni Battista Rubini. Four months later, on 3 January 1920, he scored another success, at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, this time performing under his own name opposite Rosina Storchio and Ezio Pinza in Massenet's Manon."


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the Day of November 6, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Ernestine Schumann-Heink*









*Ernestine Schumann-Heink 1906-1929 - Part Two -*









*Meyerbeer: Le Prophete - "Ah, mon fils!" -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1909) -*






*Meyerbeer: Le Prophete - "O prêtres de Baal...Il va venir" -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1907) -*






*Wagner: Das Rheingold: "Weiche, Wotan" -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1907) -*






"*Ernestine Schumann-Heink* (15 June 1861 - 17 November 1936) was a Czech-born German-American operatic contralto of German Bohemian descent. She was noted for the size, beauty, tonal richness, flexibility and wide range of her voice.

She performed with Gustav Mahler at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, and became well known for her performances of the works of Richard Wagner at Bayreuth, singing at the Bayreuth Festivals from 1896 to 1914.[citation needed]

Schumann-Heink's first appearance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City was in 1899, and she performed regularly there until 1932. She recorded the first of her many musical "gramophone" performances in 1900. Several of these early sound recordings originally released on 78 RPM discs have been reissued on CD format and continue to impress due to Schumann-Heink's rich vocal tone quality and impressive musical technique."


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 7, 2019 -*









*The Sopranos - Part Three - *









*Charpentier: Louise "Depuis le jour" -

Dame Nellie Melba - (Recorded 1913) - *














*Gounod: Faust: "Ah! je ris" - (Jewel Song) -

Adelina Patti - (Recorded 1905) -*














*Hahn, R: "Si mes vers avaient des ailes" -

Marcella Sembrich - (Recorded 1908) - *














*Schubert: "Gretchen am Spinnrade, D118" -

Emma Eames - (Recorded 1911) - *


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 8, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Beniamino Gigli*









*Beniamino Gigli Volume 1 1918-1924 - Part Three - *









*Donizetti: La Favorita: "Spirto gentil" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1921) -*






*Gounod: Faust: "Salve, dimora casta e pura" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1921) -*






*Mascagni: Iris: "Apri la tua finestra" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1921) -*






*Beniamino Gigli* - (20 March 1890 - 30 November 1957) was an Italian opera singer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tenors of his generation.

Gigli made many important debuts in quick succession, and always in Mefistofele: Teatro Massimo in Palermo (31 March 1915), Teatro di San Carlo in Naples (26 December 1915), Teatro Costanzi di Roma (26 December 1916), La Scala, Milan (19 November 1918) and finally the Metropolitan Opera, New York City (26 November 1920). Two other great Italian tenors present on the roster of Met singers during the 1920s also happened to be Gigli's chief contemporary rivals for tenor supremacy in the Italian repertory-namely, Giovanni Martinelli and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi.

Some of the roles with which Gigli became particularly associated during this period included Edgardo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Rodolfo in Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème and the title role in Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chénier, both of which he would later record in full.

Gigli rose to true international prominence after the death of the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso in 1921. Such was his popularity with audiences he was often called "Caruso Secondo", though he much preferred to be known as "Gigli Primo". In fact, the comparison was not valid as Caruso had a bigger, darker, more heroic voice than Gigli's sizable yet honey-toned lyric instrument."


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 9, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Rosa Ponselle*









*Rosa Ponselle Volume 1 1923-1939 - Part Three -*









*Bellini: Norma - "Sediziose...Casta Diva" -

Rosa Ponselle - (Recorded 1928) -*






*Bellini: Norma - "Mira, O Norma" -

Rosa Ponselle - (Recorded 1929) -*






*Curtis, E: "Carmé" -

Rosa Ponselle - (Recorded 1924) -*






"*Rosa Ponselle* (January 22, 1897 - May 25, 1981) was an American operatic soprano.

She sang mainly at the New York Metropolitan Opera and is generally considered to have been one of the greatest sopranos of the 20th Century.

Ponselle made her Metropolitan Opera debut on November 15, 1918, just a few days after the Great War had finished, as Leonora in Verdi's La forza del destino, opposite Caruso. It was her first performance on any opera stage. She was quite intimidated for being in the presence of Caruso, and in spite of an almost paralyzing case of nervousness (which she suffered from throughout her operatic career), she scored a tremendous success, both with the public and with the critics. New York Times critic James Huneker wrote: "...what a promising debut! Added to her personal attractiveness, she possesses a voice of natural beauty that may prove a gold mine; it is vocal gold, anyhow, with its luscious lower and middle tones, dark, rich and ductile, brilliant in the upper register."

In addition to Leonora, Ponselle's roles in the 1918/19 season included Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, Rezia in Weber's Oberon, and Carmelita in the (unsuccessful) world premiere of Joseph Carl Breil's The Legend."


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 10, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Tito Schipa*









*Tito Schipa 1913-1937 - Part Three - *









*Flotow: Martha - "M'appari" -

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1925) -*






*Donizetti: Don Pasquale: "Sogno soave e casto" -

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1926) -*






*Verdi: Rigoletto: "Questa o quella" -

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1926) -*






"*Tito Schipa* (born Raffaele Attilio Amedeo Schipa; 2 January 1889 in Lecce - 16 December 1965) was an Italian tenor, considered the greatest tenore di grazia and one of the most popular tenors of the century.

Schipa's stage repertoire, which in his early career had encompassed a wide range of Verdi and Puccini roles, eventually contracted to about 20 congenial Italian and French operatic roles, including Massenet's Werther, Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore and Cilea's L'arlesiana. In concert, Schipa performed a preferred array of lyrical operatic arias and songs, including Neapolitan and Spanish popular songs.

Schipa made numerous audio recordings of arias and songs during his career, beginning in Italy in 1913. His recorded output included a famous 78-rpm set of Donizetti's Don Pasquale, made in 1932. This is still in circulation on CD. He also recorded several tangos, some of which were composed by him in Spanish, mostly in Buenos Aires and New York. Thanks to his early Latin American tours, Schipa was a very popular tenor in Latin America.

Although a few contemporary critics considered Schipa's voice to be small in size, restricted in range and slightly husky in timbre, he was still extremely popular with the public."


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 11, 2019 -

"Legendary Opera Duets" - Part Three -*
















*(Pictured: Edmond Clément and Geraldine Farrar)*

*Lully: "Au clair de la lune" -

Edmond Clément and Geraldine Farrar - (Recorded 1913) -*













*(Pictured: Barbara Kemp and Jozef Mann)*

*Verdi: Aida: "Ciel, il mio padre" -

Barbara Kemp and Jozef Mann - (Recording 1921) -*













*(Pictured: Titta Ruffo and Beniamino Gigli)*

*Ponchielli: La Gioconda: "Enzo Grimaldo" -

Titta Ruffo and Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1926) -*













*(Pictured: Edmond Clément and Geraldine Farrar)*

*Boito: Mefistofele: "Lontano, lontano" -

Edmond Clément and Geraldine Farrar - (Recorded 1913) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 12, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Claudia Muzio -*

















*Claudia Muzio 1911-1935 - Part Three - *

*Reger: "La Ninna-Nanna della Vergine" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






*Verdi: Otello: "Dio ti giocondi" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






*Boito: Mefistofele: "L'altra notte in fondo al mare" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






*Claudia Muzio* (7 February 1889 - 24 May 1936) was an Italian operatic soprano who enjoyed an international career during the early 20th century.

Muzio made her operatic début in Arezzo (15 January 1910) in the title role of Massenet's Manon, and despite her youth she made rapid progress in the opera houses of Italy, leading to débuts at La Scala in Milan in 1913 (as Desdemona in Verdi's Otello), in Paris (as Desdemona) and in London at Covent Garden (as Puccini's Manon Lescaut) in 1914; she stayed on in London to sing other roles including Mimì and Tosca (both with Caruso).

She was invited to the Met in New York in December 1916 (for Tosca) and was so successful that she continued to appear there during six successive years. It was at the Metropolitan that Muzio created the role of Giorgetta in Il tabarro, in the world première of Puccini's triple bill, Il trittico, on 14 December 1918.

She established a special relationship with audiences at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, where she first appeared in June 1919 (in Catalani's Loreley). From then until 1934 she sang there in 23 different operas, becoming known as "la divina Claudia". Between 1922 and 1932, she appeared regularly in Chicago (after falling out with the management at the New York Met).

On 15 October 1932, she performed the title role of Tosca to inaugurate the new War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. Other notable roles in her career included the title role in Aida, Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, Maddalena in Andrea Chénier, and Leonora in Il trovatore (all in New York), and also Violetta in La traviata and Leonora in La forza del destino (in Chicago and Buenos Aires). Her last and according to some critics her greatest role was in Rome in 1934 as Cecilia in the opera of that name written for her by Licinio Refice. Her most popular role, however, was Violetta, in which she was considered unsurpassed throughout the Latin opera world (Italy, Spain, South America).


----------



## Scott in PA (Aug 13, 2016)

I know that Farrar was a real beauty, but that image of her (paired with Clement) - wow!


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 13, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Alessandro Bonci*









*Alessandro Bonci - The Fonotipia recordings 1905-1907 - Part Three -*









*Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia: "Voi dovreste…Numero quindici" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1905) -*






*Gluck: Paride ed Elena - "O del mio dolce ardor" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1905) -*






*Gluck: Paride ed Elena - "Spiagge amate" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1905) -*






*Alessandro Bonci* (February 10, 1870 - August 9, 1940) was an Italian lyric tenor known internationally for his association with the bel canto repertoire. He sang at many famous theatres, including New York's Metropolitan Opera, Milan's La Scala and London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Alessandro Bonci made his debut in Parma in 1896, singing the role of Fenton in Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff at the Teatro Regio. Before the end of his first season he was engaged to sing at La Scala, Milan, where he debuted in Vincenzo Bellini's I Puritani. Appearances elsewhere in Europe followed, including at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He first sang at Covent Garden in 1900 and he would return there in 1903 and 1907-08.

On December 3, 1906, Bonci made his American debut with the Manhattan Opera Company in New York City; again the opera was I Puritani. He stayed two seasons with the company, becoming a popular competitor to Enrico Caruso, who was the rival Metropolitan Opera's major drawcard. Bonci himself joined the Metropolitan Opera in 1908 and, in 1914, the Chicago Opera. He also made a transcontinental tour of America in 1910-11, giving song recitals.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 14, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Emmy Destinn*









*Emmy Destinn 1907-1921 - Part Three - *









*Bizet: Carmen: "Je vais danser" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1908) -*






*Saint-Saëns: Samson et Dalila: "Sieh mein Herz (Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix)" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1911) -*






*Puccini: Tosca: "Vissi d'arte" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1914) -*






*Emmy Destinn* (Ema Destinnová - 26 February 1878 - 28 January 1930) was a Czech operatic soprano with a strong and soaring lyric-dramatic voice. She had a career both in Europe and at the New York Metropolitan Opera.

Her voice teacher since age thirteen had been Marie Maria von Dreger Loewe-Destinn, and the young singer began using her teacher's surname as a tribute. She was let go after the short engagement at the Dresden Opera and declined by Prague National Theatre in 1897. She debuted on 19 July 1898 at the Berlin Court Opera as Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana. She made such progress that the intendent of the Berlin Court Opera engaged her at once when she was brought to her notice. She was only nineteen at the time, but her voice and her acting soon won the Berlin public. Her engagement in Berlin lasted until 27 October 1909. She sang in 54 operas, including 12 premieres.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 15, 2019 -*
















*(Pictured: Ezio Pinza)*

*Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor: Act III, "Chi me frena in tal momento" -

Giuseppe de Luca, Ezio Pinza, Angelo Bada, Beniamino Gigli, Louise Homer, Amelita Galli-Curci

(Recorded 1927)*













*(Pictured: Beniamino Gigli and Tatiana Menotti) *

*Puccini: La Bohème - "'Quando me'n vo'" -

Afro Poli, Beniamino Gigli, Tatiana Menotti, Licia Albanese

(Recorded 1938) -*













*(Pictured Enrico Caruso and Frieda Hempel)*

*Verdi: Un ballo in maschera: Act I, "Così scritto è lassù" -

Léon Rothier, Enrico Caruso, Maria Duchêne, Frida Hempel

(Recorded 1914) - *













*(Pictured: Gina Cigna)*

*Gounod: Faust: Act V, "All'erta, all'erta" -

Tancredi Pasero, Paolo Civil, Gina Cigna

(Recorded 1929) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 16, 2019 -

Featured Artist - César Vezzani*









*César Vezzani 1912-1925 - Part Three -*









*Reyer: Sigurd - "Prince du Rhin" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Reyer: Sigurd - "J'ai gardé mon âme ingénu" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1925) -*






*Reyer: Sigurd - "Esprits Gardiens" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Reyer: Sigurd - "Oui, Sigurd est vainquer" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1924) -*






*César Vezzani* (8 August 1888 - 11 November 1951) was a French/Corsican operatic tenor who became a leading exponent of French grand opera through several decades.

Vezzani was born in Bastia in Corsica; his father died shortly before his birth. Soon after 1900 his family moved to Toulon on the French mainland, but little is known about his early musical training. In 1908 he went to Paris to study singing and was taught by the Corsican soprano Agnès Borgo (1879 - 1958). He then made his operatic début at the Opéra-Comique in 1911 in the title-role of Richard Coeur-de-Lion by Grétry. He continued singing there in such works as Dinorah by Meyerbeer and Erlanger's La sorcière, as well as Italian operas such as Tosca and Cavalleria Rusticana.

In 1913 Vezzani and Agnès Borgo were married, and they had one daughter. (They later divorced in 1919, and Vezzani had two subsequent marriages.) Vezzani and Borgo were contracted to sing in the USA (including Boston) in 1914/1915 but were prevented by the outbreak of the First World War. Vezzani was called up and was wounded in action. He resumed his singing career during the later years of the war, but most of his subsequent engagements were in provincial opera houses, especially in the south of France, though he also sang in Brussels. He returned to the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1921/1922 and probably appeared there again during the 1920s, but he never sang at the Paris Opéra. The ringing and heroic quality of his voice made him an ideal choice for certain heavy and dramatic tenor parts, but he never abandoned some of the more lyrical roles of the French repertoire.


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 17, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Antonina Nezhdanova*









*Antonina Nezhdanova 1906-1939 - Part Three -*









*Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots: "O beau pays de la Touraine" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1908) -*






*Glinka: A Life for the Tsar: "I Do Not Grieve for That" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1914) -*






*Alyabyev: "The Nightingale" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1908) -*






*Antonina Vasilievna Nezhdanova* (16 June [O.S. 4 June] 1873 - 26 June 1950), was a Russian lyric coloratura soprano. An outstanding opera singer, she represented the Russian vocal school at its best.

Nezhdanova was born in Kryva Balka, near Odessa, Ukraine, then in the Russian Empire. In 1899, she entered the Moscow Conservatory. Upon her graduation three years later she joined the Bolshoi Theatre, rapidly becoming its leading soprano. She often sang, too, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg and also in Kiev and Odessa. Paris heard her in 1912, when she appeared opposite the great tenor Enrico Caruso and Caruso's baritone equivalent, Titta Ruffo.

Nezhdanova was the dedicatee of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, and she was the first performer of the arrangement for soprano and orchestra, with Serge Koussevitzky conducting. She created a number of operatic roles. After the 1917 Russian Revolution she stayed on at the Bolshoi, unlike some of her fellow opera singers, who left their native country for the West. In 1936, she began to teach singing in Moscow and was appointed a professor at the city's conservatory in 1943.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 18, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Antonio Cortis*









*Antonio Cortis 1925-1930 - Part Three -*









*Massenet: Manon - "Ah! fuyez douce image" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1925) - *






*Massenet: Werther: "Pourquoi me réveiller?" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1929) - *






*Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana: "O Lola" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1929) -*






*Mascagni: Iris: "Apri la tua finestra" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1929) -*






*Antonio Cortis* (12 August 1891 - 2 April 1952) was a Spanish tenor with an outstanding voice. He was acclaimed by audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for his exciting performances of Italian operatic works, especially those by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and the verismo composers.

He made his stage debut in 1912 at the Liceo in Barcelona as a comprimario singer, but he gradually worked his way up to major roles at a variety of opera houses in Spain and South America, including the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. On the South American tour of 1917, the young tenor was befriended by the Metropolitan Opera star Enrico Caruso, who encouraged him to pursue his singing career in New York City. Cortis declined Caruso's offer of help due to personal reasons but he would henceforth model his singing technique on Caruso's great example.

His international career began in earnest with successful appearances in Naples and, more importantly, at Rome's Teatro Costanzi in 1920, where he signed a three-year contract. He proceeded to sing in Stockholm, Milan, Latin America and Berlin and, most famously, with the esteemed company at the Chicago Civic Opera from 1924 to 1932. His debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, occurred in 1931, as Calaf in Puccini's Turandot. He appeared often on the Italian opera-house circuit during the early 1930s but success at Milan's La Scala, with its entrenched roster of popular Italian-born tenors, eluded him.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 19, 2019 -*









*Age Of Bel Canto - Part Three -*








*(Pictured: Luisa Tetrazzini)*

*Bellini: La Sonnambula - "Come per me sereno...Sovra il sen" -

Luisa Tetrazzini - (Recorded 1912) - *













*(Pictured: Claudia Muzio)*

*Bellini: La Sonnambula - "Ah! non credea mirarti" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1912) -*













*(Pictured: Toti Dal Monte)*

*Bellini: Norma - "Casta Diva" -

Toti Dal Monte - (Recorded 1943) -*













*(Pictured: Celestina Boninsegna)*

*Bellini: Norma - "Ah! bello a me ritorna" -

Celestina Boninsegna - (Recorded 1910) -*


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Mollie John said:


> View attachment 126651
> 
> *(Pictured: Beniamino Gigli and Tatiana Menotti) *


That's not Gigli and Menotti - it's Mario Lanza and Licia Albanese.

Enjoying these daily postings!


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

wkasimer said:


> That's not Gigli and Menotti - it's Mario Lanza and Licia Albanese.
> 
> Enjoying these daily postings!


Thank you for the kind words and the heads up on the photos. The photo appears as the first choice when searching with the terms "Beniamino Gigli and Tatiana Menotti" -

https://www.google.com/search?q=Ben...Sa0KHcAbBacQ_AUIEygC&biw=1920&bih=969#imgrc=_

The photo also is identified as Gigli and Menotti at the 5:25 mark of this video -






but I'm glad to have the chance to correct the mistaken identities - :tiphat:

I'm always happy to correct any mistakes that may be found in either the photo or musical selections.

- Duncan


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Mollie John said:


> I'm always happy to correct any mistakes that may be found in either the photo or musical selections.


Any errors are irrelevant. I appreciate the work and thought that go into these posting.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 20, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Amelita Galli-Curci*









*Amelita Galli-Curci Volume 1 1917-1924 - Part Three -*









*Verdi: La Traviata - "Sempre libera" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1919) -*






*Verdi: La Traviata - "Dite alla giovine…Imponete! Non amarlo ditegli" -

Amelita Galli-Curci and Giuseppe De Luca - (Recorded 1918) -*






*Verdi: La Traviata - "Addio del passato" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1920) -*






*Amelita Galli-Curci* (18 November 1882 - 26 November 1963) was an Italian coloratura soprano. She was one of the most popular operatic singers of the 20th century, with her recordings selling in large numbers.

Galli-Curci made her operatic debut in 1906 at Trani, as Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, and she rapidly became acclaimed throughout Italy for the sweetness and agility of her voice and her captivating musical interpretations. She was seen by many critics as an antidote to the host of squally, verismo-oriented sopranos then populating Italian opera houses.

Galli-Curci first arrived in the United States in the autumn of 1916 as a virtual unknown. Her stay in the US was intended to be brief, but the acclaim she received for her historic American debut as Gilda in Rigoletto in Chicago, Illinois on 18 November 1916 (her 34th birthday) was so wildly enthusiastic that she accepted an offer to extend her association with the Chicago Opera Association, where she appeared until the end of the 1924 season. Also in 1916, Galli-Curci signed a recording contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company and recorded exclusively for the company until 1930.

On 14 November 1921, While still under contract with the Chicago Opera, Galli-Curci made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Violetta in La Traviata. She was one of few singers of that era who were contracted to both opera companies simultaneously. Galli-Curci remained at the Met until her retirement from the operatic stage nine years later.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 21, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Giacomo Lauri-Volpi*









*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi 1922-1942 - Part Three - *









*Leoncavallo: Pagliacci: "Vesti la giubba" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Puccini: La Bohème: "Che gelida manina" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Verdi: Il Trovatore: "Ah si, ben mio...Di quella pira" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi* (11 December 1892 - 17 March 1979) was an Italian tenor with a lyric-dramatic voice of exceptional range and technical facility. He performed throughout Europe and the Americas in a top-class career that spanned 40 years.

Lauri-Volpi was widely acclaimed for his performances at Italy's most celebrated opera house, La Scala, Milan, between the two world wars. A highlight of his Milan seasons occurred in 1929 when he was chosen to sing Arnoldo in La Scala's centenary production of Rossini's Guglielmo Tell.

He was also a leading tenor at the New York Metropolitan Opera from 1923 to 1933, appearing there in a total of 307 performances. During this 10-year period he sang opposite Maria Jeritza in the American premiere of Puccini's Turandot and opposite Rosa Ponselle in the Met premiere of Verdi's Luisa Miller. His Met career was terminated prematurely after a dispute with the opera house's management. They wanted him to take a pay cut to help tide the theatre through the economic privations being caused by the Great Depression, but he refused to co-operate and left New York for Italy.

Lauri-Volpi's most notable appearances outside Italy also included two seasons at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden-in 1925 and 1936. By the latter date, he had broadened his repertoire, progressing from lyric roles to more taxing dramatic parts. His voice began to show consequent signs of wear in the 1940s, losing homogeneity. His thrilling top notes remained remarkably intact, however, right through until the 1950s.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the Day of November 22, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Ernestine Schumann-Heink*









*Ernestine Schumann-Heink 1906-1929 - Part Three -*









*Millöcker: "I und mei Bua" -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1908) -*






*Wagner: Rienzi: "Gerechter Gott!" -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1908) -*






*Handel: Rinaldo - "Lascia ch'io pianga" -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1909) -*






*Ernestine Schumann-Heink* (15 June 1861 - 17 November 1936) was a Czech-born German-American operatic contralto of German Bohemian descent. She was noted for the size, beauty, tonal richness, flexibility and wide range of her voice.

She performed with Gustav Mahler at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, and became well known for her performances of the works of Richard Wagner at Bayreuth, singing at the Bayreuth Festivals from 1896 to 1914.

Schumann-Heink's first appearance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City was in 1899, and she performed regularly there until 1932. She recorded the first of her many musical "gramophone" performances in 1900. Several of these early sound recordings originally released on 78 RPM discs have been reissued on CD format and continue to impress due to Schumann-Heink's rich vocal tone quality and impressive musical technique.

She was born Ernestine Amalie Pauline Rössler to a German-speaking family in the town of Libeň (German: Lieben), Bohemia, Austrian Empire, which is now part of the city of Prague, Czech Republic. Her father, Hans Rössler, was a shoe maker; while previously serving as an Austrian cavalry officer, he had been stationed in northern Italy (then an Austrian protectorate), where he met and married Charlotte Goldman, with whom he returned to Libeň. Her maternal grandmother was a Hungarian Jew.

When Ernestine was three years old, the family moved to Verona. In 1866, at the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War, the family moved to Prague, where she was schooled at the Ursuline Convent. At war's end, the Roesslers moved to Podgórze, now part of Kraków. The family moved again to Graz when Tini was thirteen. Here she met Marietta von LeClair, a retired opera singer, who agreed to give her voice lessons.

In 1877, Rössler made her first professional performance, in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Graz, appearing with soprano Maria Wilt. Her operatic debut was at Dresden's Royal Opera House on 15 October 1878 as Azucena in Il trovatore.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

This a nice thread MJ. I think I can speak for us all when I say thanks for the work.

Again, assume a 'like' for every post.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 23, 2019 -*









*The Sopranos - Part Four - *









*Glinka: Ruslan and Ludmila: "O my Ratmir!" -

Marianne Cherkasskaya - (Recorded 1909) - *














*Verdi: Un ballo in maschera: "Morrò, ma prima in grazia" -

Zinka Milanov - (Recorded 1940) - *














*Adam, A: Variations on Mozart's "Ah, vous dirai-je maman" -

Ada Sari - (Recording date unknown) -*














*Schubert: Schwanengesang, D. 957, No. 5: "Aufenthal" -

Maria Olszewska - (Recorded 1929) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 24, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Beniamino Gigli*









*Beniamino Gigli Volume 1 1918-1924 - Part Four -*









*Curtis, E: "Tu sola" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1921) -*






*Drigo: "Notturno d'Amor" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1922) -*






*Lalo: Le Roi d'Ys: "Vainement ma bien aimée" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1922) -*






*Beniamino Gigli* (20 March 1890 - 30 November 1957) was an Italian opera singer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tenors of his generation.

Gigli rose to true international prominence after the death of the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso in 1921. Such was his popularity with audiences he was often called "Caruso Secondo", though he much preferred to be known as "Gigli Primo". In fact, the comparison was not valid as Caruso had a bigger, darker, more heroic voice than Gigli's sizable yet honey-toned lyric instrument.

Gigli left the Met in 1932, ostensibly after refusing to take a pay cut. Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the Met's then general manager, was furious at his company's most popular male singer; he told the press that Gigli was the only singer not to accept the pay cut. There were in fact several others, Lily Pons and Rosa Ponselle among them; and it is well documented that Gatti-Casazza gave himself a large pay increase in 1931, so that after the pay cut in 1932 his salary remained the same as it had been originally. Furthermore, Gatti was careful to hide Gigli's counter offer from the press, in which the singer offered to sing five or six concerts gratis, which in dollars saved was worth more than Gatti's imposed pay cut.

After leaving the Met, Gigli returned again to Italy, and sang in houses there, elsewhere in Europe, and in South America. He was criticised for being a favourite singer of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, having recorded the Fascist anthem "Giovinezza" in 1937 (it is noticeably excluded from his "Edizione Integrale", released by EMI. Toward the end of World War II, he was able to give few performances. However, he immediately returned to the stage when the war ended in 1945, and the audience acclaim was greater and more clamorous than ever.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I'm a huge fan of Gigli. I fell in love with his voice when I heard him singing Amirilli. Just sublime.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Barbebleu said:


> I'm a huge fan of Gigli. I fell in love with his voice when I heard him singing Amirilli. Just sublime.


A sneak preview...









*Caccini, F: "Amarilli" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1939) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*A sneak preview of an upcoming featured artist...*









*Maggie Teyte - A Vocal Portrait - Historical Recordings 1932 - 1948 - *









*Berlioz: Les Nuits d'été, Op. 7 - "No. 1. Le spectre de la rose" -

Maggie Teyte - (Recorded 1940) - *






*Berlioz: Les Nuits d'été, Op. 7 - "No. 4. Absence" -

Maggie Teyte - (Recorded 1940) - *






*Dame Maggie Teyte*, DBE (17 April 1888 - 26 May 1976) was an English operatic soprano and interpreter of French art song.

"_L'exquise Maggie Teyte_" as she was known in France.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 25, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Rosa Ponselle*









*Rosa Ponselle Volume 1 1923-1939 - Part Four *-









*Capua: "Maria, mari!" -

Rosa Ponselle - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Arensky: "On Wings of Dream" -

Rosa Ponselle - (Recorded 1939) -*






*Rimsky Korsakov: 4 Romances, Op.2: No. 2, "The Nightingale and the Rose" -

Rosa Ponselle - (Recorded 1939) -*






*Jacobs-Bond: "A Perfect Day" -

Rosa Ponselle - (Recorded 1925) -*






*Rosa Ponselle* (January 22, 1897 - May 25, 1981) was an American operatic soprano.

She sang mainly at the New York Metropolitan Opera and is generally considered to have been one of the greatest sopranos of the 20th Century.

Rosa Ponselle made her Metropolitan Opera debut on November 15, 1918, just a few days after the Great War had finished, as Leonora in Verdi's La forza del destino, opposite Caruso. It was her first performance on any opera stage. She was quite intimidated for being in the presence of Caruso, and in spite of an almost paralyzing case of nervousness (which she suffered from throughout her operatic career), she scored a tremendous success, both with the public and with the critics. New York Times critic James Huneker wrote: "...what a promising debut! Added to her personal attractiveness, she possesses a voice of natural beauty that may prove a gold mine; it is vocal gold, anyhow, with its luscious lower and middle tones, dark, rich and ductile, brilliant in the upper register."

In addition to Leonora, Ponselle's roles in the 1918/19 season included Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, Rezia in Weber's Oberon, and Carmelita in the (unsuccessful) world premiere of Joseph Carl Breil's The Legend.

In the following Met seasons, Ponselle's roles included the lead soprano roles in La Juive (opposite Caruso's Eléazar, his last new role before he died), William Tell, Ernani, Il trovatore, Aida, La Gioconda, Don Carlos, L'Africaine, L'amore dei tre re, Andrea Chénier, La vestale, and in 1927 the role that many considered her greatest achievement, the title role in Bellini's Norma. In addition to her operatic activities, which were centered at the Met, Ponselle had a lucrative concert career.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Mollie John said:


> *A sneak preview of an upcoming featured artist...*
> 
> View attachment 127007
> 
> ...


Maggie Teyte is one of my favourite singers. I have reviewed two of her discs on my blog and she also features in an article on the ten singers who changed my life, also on my blog.

https://tsaraslondon.wordpress.com/2017/05/08/singers-who-changed-my-life/


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 26, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Tito Schipa*









*Tito Schipa 1913-1937 - Part Four -*









*Cilea: L'Arlesiana: "E la solita storia" -

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1928) -*






*Verdi: Luisa Miller: "Quando le sere al placido" -

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1928) -*






*Mascagni: Suzel, buon di 'Cherry Duet' (from L'amico Fritz) -

Tito Schipa and Mafalda Favero - (Recorded 1937) - *






*Tito Schipa* (born Raffaele Attilio Amedeo Schipa; 2 January 1889 in Lecce - 16 December 1965) was an Italian tenor, considered the greatest tenore di grazia and one of the most popular tenors of the century.

*Mafalda Favero* (January 5, 1905 - September 3rd, 1981) was an Italian operatic soprano.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 27, 2019 -

"Legendary Opera Duets" - Part Four -*
















*(Pictured: Lily Pons)*

*Verdi: Rigoletto: "Il nome vostro" -

Giuseppe de Luca and Lily Pons - (Recorded 1935) -*













*(Pictured: Aureliano Pertile)*

*Verdi: La forza del destino: "Le minace, i fieri" -

Benvenuto Franci and Aureliano Pertile - (Recorded approx. 1928) -*













*(Pictured: Toti Dal Monte)*

*Mozart: Don GiovanniL"a ci darem la mano" -

Augusto Beuf and Toti Dal Monte - (Recorded 1941) -*













*(Pictured: Enrico Caruso)*

*Verdi: Il trovatore: "Misere" -

Enrico Caruso and Frances Alda - (Recorded 1909) - *


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 28, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Claudia Muzio -*









*Claudia Muzio 1911-1935 - Part Four -*









*Verdi: Il Trovatore: "Tacea la notte placida" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






*Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur: "Poveri fiori" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






*Cilea: L'Arlesiana: "Esser madre è un inferno" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






*Claudia Muzio* (7 February 1889 - 24 May 1936) was an Italian operatic soprano who enjoyed an international career during the early 20th century.

On 15 October 1932, she performed the title role of Tosca to inaugurate the new War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. Other notable roles in her career included the title role in Aida, Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, Maddalena in Andrea Chénier, and Leonora in Il trovatore (all in New York), and also Violetta in La traviata and Leonora in La forza del destino (in Chicago and Buenos Aires). Her last and according to some critics her greatest role was in Rome in 1934 as Cecilia in the opera of that name written for her by Licinio Refice. Her most popular role, however, was Violetta, in which she was considered unsurpassed throughout the Latin opera world (Italy, Spain, South America).

Muzio was noted for the beauty and warmth of her voice, which, although not particularly large, acquired a considerable richness of tonal colouring as she grew older. Her performances were sometimes criticised for excessive use of dynamic extremes, including her exquisitely expressive pianissimo singing.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 29, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Alessandro Bonci*









*Alessandro Bonci - The Fonotipia recordings 1905-1907 - Part Four -*









*Meyerbeer: L'Africaine: "O Paradiso" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1905) -*






*Thomas, Ambroise: Mignon - "Addio Mignon" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1905) -*






*Thomas, Ambroise: Mignon - "Ah! non credevi tu" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1905) -*






*Alessandro Bonci* (February 10, 1870 - August 9, 1940) was an Italian lyric tenor known internationally for his association with the bel canto repertoire. He sang at many famous theatres, including New York's Metropolitan Opera, Milan's La Scala and London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Bonci's artistry was captured on disc by the Fonotipia, Edison and Columbia companies. His first recordings were made in 1905 and his last in 1926, with a handful produced between these dates (in 1913). He is heard to best advantage in operatic arias by Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti and Gluck, but he was also renowned in Europe and the United States for his Rodolfo in Puccini's La boheme, his Riccardo in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera and his Duke of Mantua in Verdi's Rigoletto.

Bonci was a demure man and his voice was not overly large. It was sweet-toned, stylish and supple, with excellent high notes and an easy high C. He sang with what at the time would have been considered a standard vibrato, though later generations (until our own) preferred a slower one.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of November 30, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Emmy Destinn*









*Emmy Destinn 1907-1921 - Part Four -*









*Ponchielli: La Gioconda: "Suicidio" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1914) -*






*Thomas, Ambroise: Mignon: "Kennst du das Land" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1914) -*






*Verdi: Aïda: "O Patria mia" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1914) -*






*Emmy Destinn* (Ema Destinnová); 26 February 1878 - 28 January 1930) was a Czech operatic soprano with a strong and soaring lyric-dramatic voice. She had a career both in Europe and at the New York Metropolitan Opera.

Destinn made her London debut at Covent Garden's Royal Opera House on 2 May 1904, as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. She appeared there in several operas for the next two seasons, including the London premiere of Madama Butterfly with Caruso. Her Metropolitan Opera debut came in 1908 with an acclaimed performance of Aida, after she was released from her contract with the Berlin Court Opera. Two years later at the Met, she created the role of Minnie in the premiere of Puccini's La fanciulla del West, again opposite Caruso, and under the direction of Arturo Toscanini.

While she was highly successful in the lighter roles of Wagner's operas, her spinto voice-although large in size, with a ringing top register-was better suited to German music of a less declamatory type. She also excelled in the French part of Carmen, in which she was said to rival Calvé, and in the Italian roles of Aida, Madama Butterfly and Leonora (in Il trovatore).[


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^ I've always wondered what Destinn's voice sounded like in life. On records it has a whininess that I find less than ingratiating. I'm guessing that it was very bright in timbre, and that the loss of upper partials was particularly unkind to it. Her slow (for the time) vibrato is also distinctive. 

I wonder if Birgit Nilsson would have sounded something like Destinn on the recording equipment of the day. I do know that as an experiment Nilsson once made a recording by the acoustic process and was so appalled by the squeaky little voice coming back at her that she swore never to judge old singers harshly again. I'd love to hear that recording!


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> ^^^ I've always wondered what Destinn's voice sounded like in life. On records it has a whininess that I find less than ingratiating. I'm guessing that it was very bright in timbre, and that the loss of upper partials was particularly unkind to it. Her slow (for the time) vibrato is also distinctive.
> 
> I wonder if Birgit Nilsson would have sounded something like Destinn on the recording equipment of the day. I do know that as an experiment Nilsson once made a recording by the acoustic process and was so appalled by the squeaky little voice coming back at her that she swore never to judge old singers harshly again. I'd love to hear that recording!


I tried but couldn't find the Nilsson recording but I thought that you might find this wax cylinder recording session to be of interest -


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mollie John said:


> I tried but couldn't find the Nilsson recording but I thought that you might find this wax cylinder recording session to be of interest -


Interesting. The experiment demonstrates something I've long believed: that the old recordings are cruel in stripping a singer naked and exposing his or her technical strengths and weaknesses. But I think the cruelty is mainly to the singers of our own time.

Deprived of the obscuring "haze" of sound's full resonance and sensory impact as heard in life, any faults in a singer's emission will show up with inescapable distinctness when funneled through a recording horn. It's somewhat analogous to a two-dimensional, black-and-white camera close up, in which color, atmosphere and the softening effect of our binocular perception are no longer present to distract from the subject's wrinkles and pores. The singer and the photographic subject alike have nowhere to hide.

Unflattered by the full "color" of the voice and the "atmosphere" of acoustical space, the achievements of golden age singers emerge as more impressive than ever. I fear that subjected to the same deficiencies in the recording process, many of our leading singers would not have been found worth recording in the days of Ruffo and Caruso and Gadski.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of December 1, 2019 -*
















*(Pictured: Ezio Pinza)*

*Verdi: Il trovatore: Act III, "Giorni povera vivea" -

Ezio Pinza, Ugo Marturano, and Maartje Offers -

(Recorded 1924) -*













*(Pictured: Beniamino Gigli)*

*Verdi: I Lombardi: "Qual voluttà transcorre" -

Ezio Pinza, Beniamino Gigli, Elisabeth Rethberg -

(Recorded 1930) -*













*(Pictured: Augustarello Affre)*

*Rossini: Giullaume Tell: Act II, "Ses jours" -

Hippolite Belhomme, Henri Albers, and Augustarello Affre -

(Recorded 1906) -*













*(Pictured: Giuseppe de Luca)*

*Verdi: Ernani: Act III, "O sommo Carlo" -

Giuseppe de Luca, Alfio Tedesco, and Grace Anthony -

(Recorded 1928) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> Interesting. The experiment demonstrates something I've long believed: that the old recordings are cruel in stripping a singer naked and exposing his or her technical strengths and weaknesses. But I think the cruelty is mainly to the singers of our own time.
> 
> Deprived of the obscuring "haze" of sound's full resonance and sensory impact as heard in life, any faults in a singer's emission will show up with inescapable distinctness when funneled through a recording horn. It's somewhat analogous to a two-dimensional, black-and-white camera close up, in which color, atmosphere and the softening effect of our binocular perception are no longer present to distract from the subject's wrinkles and pores. The singer and the photographic subject alike have nowhere to hide.
> 
> Unflattered by the full "color" of the voice and the "atmosphere" of acoustical space, the achievements of golden age singers emerge as more impressive than ever. I fear that subjected to the same deficiencies in the recording process, many of our leading singers would not have been found worth recording in the days of Ruffo and Caruso and Gadski.


A superb contribution to the thread - allow me to extend my personal thanks for once again providing your illuminating and insightful analysis which helps to provide context to the posts written within the thread.

When the talent was present unfortunately the technology wasn't and now that the technology is present unfortunately the talent isn't...

Despite whatever shortcomings that may be present within the recordings they remain as capable of transcendence today as they surely must have been when first recorded - Galli-Curci, Ponselle, Muzio, and the others featured have had a transformative effect upon me as their talent and artistry - their "musicianship" - have deepened my appreciation for the art form... Unfortunately they have made listening to their "descendants" that much more difficult as I find myself invariably comparing one to the other much to the detriment of the latter-day "other".


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of December 2, 2019 -

Featured Artist - César Vezzani*









*César Vezzani 1912-1925 - Part Four -*









*Massenet: Manon - "En ferment les yeux" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Massenet: Manon - "Ah! fuyez douce image" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Massenet: Werther - "J'aurais sur me poitrine" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Massenet: Werther - "Pourquoi me reveiller" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1912) -*






*César Vezzani* (8 August 1888 - 11 November 1951) was a French/Corsican operatic tenor who became a leading exponent of French grand opera through several decades.

Critics have shown universal recognition of the exceptional quality of Vezzani's voice, though they have sometimes expressed reservations about the subtlety of his approach, which was generally robust.

His recording of Faust has occasioned the following comments: "Vezzani is a noble representative of that vanished breed, the French spinto tenor... Unforced lyricism was not Vezzani's greatest strength... [but] where ringing excitement is called for, his only equals are Caruso and, more recently, Franco Corelli." Referring to his recording of excerpts from Roméo et Juliette, another critic has said: "He was a real ténor de force and still singing well at sixty. There is little nuance here, but the voice is healthy and brilliant, somehow typically Corsican." Reflecting on the fact that Vezzani's career did not take him to the world's major opera houses, another has said: "He seems to be one of those whose gifts exceeded his attainments." The generous attention that he received from recording companies allows later generations to form their own judgments.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of December 3, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Antonina Nezhdanova*









_*Antonina Nezhdanova 1906-1939 - Part Four -*_









*Arensky: 6 Romances, Op.27: No. 1, Song of the Fish -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1908) -*






*Daniel-Françoist Taubert: Der Vogel im Walde, Op. 158: No. 1 -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1910) -*






*Tosti: La Serenata -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1913) -*






*Delibes: Les filles de Cadiz -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Antonina Vasilievna Nezhdanova* (16 June [O.S. 4 June] 1873 - 26 June 1950), was a Russian lyric coloratura soprano. An outstanding opera singer, she represented the Russian vocal school at its best.

Nezhdanova was born in Kryva Balka, near Odessa, Ukraine, then in the Russian Empire. In 1899, she entered the Moscow Conservatory. Upon her graduation three years later she joined the Bolshoi Theatre, rapidly becoming its leading soprano. She often sang, too, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg and also in Kiev and Odessa. Paris heard her in 1912, when she appeared opposite the great tenor Enrico Caruso and Caruso's baritone equivalent, Titta Ruffo.

Nezhdanova was the dedicatee of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, and she was the first performer of the arrangement for soprano and orchestra, with Serge Koussevitzky conducting. She created a number of operatic roles. After the 1917 Russian Revolution she stayed on at the Bolshoi, unlike some of her fellow opera singers, who left their native country for the West. In 1936, she began to teach singing in Moscow and was appointed a professor at the city's conservatory in 1943.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of December 4, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Antonio Cortis*









*Antonio Cortis 1925-1930 - Part Four -*









*Puccini: Tosca - "Recondita armonia" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1929) -*






*Puccini: Tosca - "E lucevan le stelle" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1929) -*






*Puccini: Turandot: "Nessun dorma" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1929) -*






*Antonio Cortis* (12 August 1891 - 2 April 1952) was a Spanish tenor with an outstanding voice. He was acclaimed by audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for his exciting performances of Italian operatic works, especially those by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and the verismo composers.

He made his stage debut in 1912 at the Liceo in Barcelona as a comprimario singer, but he gradually worked his way up to major roles at a variety of opera houses in Spain and South America, including the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. On the South American tour of 1917, the young tenor was befriended by the Metropolitan Opera star Enrico Caruso, who encouraged him to pursue his singing career in New York City. Cortis declined Caruso's offer of help due to personal reasons but he would henceforth model his singing technique on Caruso's great example.

His international career began in earnest with successful appearances in Naples and, more importantly, at Rome's Teatro Costanzi in 1920, where he signed a three-year contract. He proceeded to sing in Stockholm, Milan, Latin America and Berlin and, most famously, with the esteemed company at the Chicago Civic Opera from 1924 to 1932. His debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, occurred in 1931, as Calaf in Puccini's Turandot. He appeared often on the Italian opera-house circuit during the early 1930s but success at Milan's La Scala, with its entrenched roster of popular Italian-born tenors, eluded him.

Cortis came to be regarded as one of the best inter-war interpreters of verismo opera. He was particularly praised for his performances of Calaf and of Dick Johnson in Puccini's La fanciulla del West, while he sang with remarkable ease the strenuous music composed for the tenor voice by Umberto Giordano and Pietro Mascagni. Cortis also undertook Verdi roles, such as the Duke in Rigoletto, which he delivered with impressive skill and style.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

I would like to announce that I have created a companion thread to this one that some of you may find of interest -

Historic Popular Singers - 1910 - 1949 - Songs of the Day Calendar...

I do hope that you may find something that you will enjoy each day as the thread progresses through the US Top 75 Chart listings for each successive year from 1910 up to and including 1949.

Thank you for your continued support of this thread and allow me to welcome you in advance to the new one!

- Duncan


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of December 5, 2019 -*









*Age Of Bel Canto - Part Four -*









*Bellini: I Puritani: "Qui la voce" -

Marcella Sembrich - (Recorded 1907) - *














*Donizetti: Lucrezia Borgia: "Com'è bello" -

Celestina Boninsegna - (Recorded 1908) -*














*Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor -

"Regnava nel silenzio...Quando rapita in estasi"

Luisa Tetrazzini - (Recorded - 1909) -*














*Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor - "Il dolce suono" -

Amelita Gallil-Curci - (Recorded - 1917) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of December 6, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Amelita Galli-Curci*









*Amelita Galli-Curci - Volume 1 - 1917-1924 - Part Four -*









*Thomas, Ambroise: Mignon: "Io son Titania" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1919) -*






*Donizetti: Don Pasquale: "Quel guardo il cavaliere" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1919) -*






*Bellini: La Sonnambula - "Sovra il sen la man mi posa"

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1919) -*






*Bellini: La Sonnambula - "Son gelosa del zefiro" -

Amelita Galli-Curci and Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Amelita Galli-Curci* (18 November 1882 - 26 November 1963) was an Italian coloratura soprano. She was one of the most popular operatic singers of the 20th century, with her recordings selling in large numbers.

She was born as Amelita Galli into an upper-middle-class Italian family of Spanish heritage in Milan, where she studied piano at the Milan Conservatory, winning a gold medal for piano performance, and at the age of 16 was offered a professorship. She was inspired to sing by her grandmother. Operatic composer Pietro Mascagni also encouraged Galli-Curci's singing ambitions. By her own choice, Galli-Curci's voice was largely self-trained. She honed her technique by listening to other sopranos, reading old singing-method books, and doing piano exercises with her voice instead of using a keyboard.

Galli-Curci made her operatic debut in 1906 at Trani, as Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, and she rapidly became acclaimed throughout Italy for the sweetness and agility of her voice and her captivating musical interpretations. She was seen by many critics as an antidote to the host of squally, verismo-oriented sopranos then populating Italian opera houses.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^ I'm not a huge fan of coloratura showpieces, but that _Mignon_ aria is wonderful. Beyond her obvious virtuosity, Galli-Curci exudes such a natural musicality in her timing and phrasing that the music conveys every bit of the joyful fantasy it's meant to.

It's sad that her superior laryngeal nerve problem caused a premature vocal decline, but even with the flatness of pitch that crept into her singing she remained a cherishable artist. Like Tito Schipa she exemplifies the pure "fiore di bocca" enunciation, the words floating like water lilies on a pure stream of tone, that seems a lost art.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of December 7, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Giacomo Lauri-Volpi*









*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi 1922-1942 - Part Four -*









*Bellini: I Puritani: "A te, o cara" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1928) -*






*Bellini: Norma: "Meco all' altar di Venere" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1928) -*






*Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots: "Bianca al par" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1929) -*






*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi* (11 December 1892 - 17 March 1979) was an Italian tenor with a lyric-dramatic voice of exceptional range and technical facility. He performed throughout Europe and the Americas in a top-class career that spanned 40 years.

Lauri-Volpi was widely acclaimed for his performances at Italy's most celebrated opera house, La Scala, Milan, between the two world wars. A highlight of his Milan seasons occurred in 1929 when he was chosen to sing Arnoldo in La Scala's centenary production of Rossini's Guglielmo Tell.

He was also a leading tenor at the New York Metropolitan Opera from 1923 to 1933, appearing there in a total of 307 performances. During this 10-year period he sang opposite Maria Jeritza in the American premiere of Puccini's Turandot and opposite Rosa Ponselle in the Met premiere of Verdi's Luisa Miller. His Met career was terminated prematurely after a dispute with the opera house's management. They wanted him to take a pay cut to help tide the theatre through the economic privations being caused by the Great Depression, but he refused to co-operate and left New York for Italy.

Lauri-Volpi's most notable appearances outside Italy also included two seasons at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden-in 1925 and 1936. By the latter date, he had broadened his repertoire, progressing from lyric roles to more taxing dramatic parts. His voice began to show consequent signs of wear in the 1940s, losing homogeneity. His thrilling top notes remained remarkably intact, however, right through until the 1950s.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> It's sad that her superior laryngeal nerve problem caused a premature vocal decline...


I love her, but her vocal decline began long before her surgeon accidentally cut her recurrent laryngeal nerve.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

wkasimer said:


> I love her, but her vocal decline began long before her surgeon accidentally cut her recurrent laryngeal nerve.


Now that you mention it, I recall that the reason for the surgery was a goiter which had been growing for a number of years.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

wkasimer said:


> I love her, but her vocal decline began long before her surgeon accidentally cut her recurrent laryngeal nerve.





Woodduck said:


> Now that you mention it, I recall that the reason for the surgery was a goiter which had been growing for a number of years.


Superb article on the subject -

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3631811/

"Galli-Curci was a coloratura soprano, not a dramatic soprano. Her voice was better in recordings than on the stage because she could work for shorter periods, run retakes, and escape the pressure of a critical audience. An adjective that live listeners used frequently for her voice was "celestial".

By the end of the 1920s, an increasingly large thyroid goitre with a tumorous growth on the right side of Galli-Curci's neck, which had been compressing her trachea for 15 years, was gradually restricting the passage of air. Her voice began to suffer and her intonation was no longer secure, so in 1930 the operatic singer retired from the stage and continued her career in concert performances . The large goitre continued to pose problems and, after an unsuccessful European tour, she finally agreed to undergo surgery.

Dr. Arnold Kegel performed a thyroidectomy under local anaesthesia on 11 August 1935, at the Chicago Polyclinic/Henrotin Hospital. During the 70-minute surgical procedure, the surgeon asked the patient to sing tones and scales five times in front of several music critics. He removed an adenomatous goitre weighing 185 g that displaced the larynx 4.5 cm to the left and reduced the diameter of the trachea by 50% 2 7. At the end of the procedure, the soprano sang part of a duet from the Barber of Seville. Immediately afterwards, Galli-Curci was surprised to find her breathing much improved.

She performed her first vocal exercises in the hospital ward, and her voice was initially harsh. When one of the nurses commented that she sounded wonderful, Amelita replied bitterly, "Wonderful? It sounds like a circular saw hitting a rusty nail!".

Amelita was discharged from hospital on August 18 and returned to Los Angeles. Even before she left, she was euphoric about the airflow improvement she experienced following the surgery. On 19 August 1935, Time magazine wrote, "For 15 years what she affectionately called a 'potato' grew in the neck of Mme Amelita Galli-Curci, forcing her to adjust her coloratura soprano to 50% less wind volume. Last week in Chicago, while the one-time Prima Donna trilled tones and scales to show the effects on her voice, surgeons working with a local anesthetic successfully cut away a 6½-oz. goitre".

After her surgery, the singer declared, "My voice is free again, unbridled after years of fighting with the potato. The result of my operation is just short of marvellous. Even now, when I am not fully recovered, I need hardly open my mouth to obtain the pure tones difficult when the potato was in my throat... My voice is like a young colt, I will have to restrain it...".

After her operation, Amelita embarked on a lengthy period of scrupulous vocal retraining and voice studies with teacher Estelle Liebling 8. On November 16, 1936, six years after retiring from opera and 16 months after surgery, the singer returned to the stage at the Chicago Civic Opera House, as a dramatic soprano (Mimi in La Boheme). The music critics unanimously criticized the singer's interpretation and remarked on her lack of upper range, inability to sustain notes, and evident breathlessness.

After the performance, Eugene Stinson of the "Daily News" wrote, "She had command neither of voice nor of breath".Amelita Galli only sang at recitals from then on, and in 1938 she retired from the stage altogether. She died on 26 November 1963 in La Jolla, California, but the newspaper coverage of her demise was overshadowed by the assassinationof J.F. Kennedy in Dallas. In 1972, critic Simon Trezise chose Galli-Curci as "best soprano" of the 20th century."

On a personal note it was hearing Amelita Galli-Curci for the very first time on a programme originating from WFMT in Chicago that I picked up on internet radio that led to the creation of this thread.

In the first post when I wrote -

"They may indeed by "Voices of the Past" but they are as thrilling - as transcendent - now as they were then and thus merit being heard and appreciated lest they forever fade into the obscurity of the forgotten past."

It was Galli-Curci that I was thinking of...


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the Day of December 8, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Ernestine Schumann-Heink*









*Ernestine Schumann-Heink 1906-1929 - Part Four -*









*Schubert: Erlkönig, D328 -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1911) -*






*Wagner: Träume -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1911) -*






*Reimann, A: Spinnerliedchen -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1913) -*






*Molloy: The Kerry Dance -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1913) -*






*Ernestine Schumann-Heink* (15 June 1861 - 17 November 1936) was a Czech-born German-American operatic contralto of German Bohemian descent.[1] She was noted for the size, beauty, tonal richness, flexibility and wide range of her voice.

She performed with Gustav Mahler at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, and became well known for her performances of the works of Richard Wagner at Bayreuth, singing at the Bayreuth Festivals from 1896 to 1914.

Schumann-Heink's first appearance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City was in 1899, and she performed regularly there until 1932. She recorded the first of her many musical "gramophone" performances in 1900. Several of these early sound recordings originally released on 78 RPM discs have been reissued on CD format and continue to impress due to Schumann-Heink's rich vocal tone quality and impressive musical technique.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of December 9, 2019 -*









*The Sopranos - Part Five -*








*(Pictured: Emmy Destinn)*

*Wagner: Tannhäuser - (Excerpt) -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1906) -*













*(Pictured: Ljuba Welitsch)*

*Dvořák: Rusalka: "Du lieber Mond" (Song to the Moon) -

Ljuba Welitsch - (Recorded 1949)*














*Verdi: La traviata: "È strano!... Ah, fors'è lui...Sempre libera" -

Maria Caniglia - (Recorded 1939) -*














*Verdi: Aida - "Ritorna vincitor!" -

Dusolina Giannini - (Recorded 1928) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of December 10, 2019 -

Featured Artist - Beniamino Gigli*









*Beniamino Gigli Volume 1 1918-1924 - Part Five -*









*Leoncavallo: Pagliacci: "Vesti la giubba" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1922) -*






*Giordano, U: Andrea Chénier - "Un dì all' azzurro spazio" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1922) -*






*Giordano, U: Andrea Chénier - "Come un bel dì di Maggio" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1922) -*






*Meyerbeer: L'Africaine: "O paradiso" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Beniamino Gigli* 20 March 1890 - 30 November 1957) was an Italian opera singer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tenors of his generation.

In addition to his stage performances, Gigli appeared as an actor in over twenty films from 1935 to 1953. Some notable appearances include 1936's Johannes Riemann-directed musical drama Ave Maria opposite actress Käthe von Nagy and Giuseppe Fatigati's 1943 drama I Pagliacci (English release title: Laugh Pagliacci), opposite Italian actress Alida Valli.

In the last few years of his life, Gigli gave concert performances more often than he appeared on stage. Before his retirement in 1955, Gigli undertook an exhausting world tour of farewell concerts. This impaired his health in the two years that remained to him, during which time he helped prepare his memoirs (based primarily on an earlier memoir, fleshed out by a series of interviews).

Early in his career, Gigli possessed a beautiful, soft and honey-like lyric voice, with incredible mezza-voice, allowing him to sing light, lyrical roles. As he grew older, his voice developed some dramatic qualities, enabling him to sing heavier roles like Aida and Tosca. Some critics say that he was over-emotional during his performances, often resolving to sobbing and in some cases, exaggerations.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*This thread will be on hiatus until Mid-January due to holiday plans -

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année !

- Duncan*


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Mollie John said:


> *This thread will be on hiatus until Mid-January due to holiday plans -
> 
> Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année !
> 
> - Duncan*


And the same to you and yours MJ. Lang may yer lum reek!


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I have to say that this thread has sent me scurrying back to visit my historic recordings with the resultant discovery of music that I hadn't heard for donkey's years and the pleasurable reminder of what great singers used to sound like. Thank you MJ.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

As a lover of historical recordings, I just want to thank you for this very valuable thread. These artists are amazing. I discover obscure historic singers every day who would be considered freaks of nature today. Since you highlighted Celestina Boninsegna, let me just add a recording here, which demonstrates why she must have been a supremely exciting singer to see live.





In particular, her "In mezzo a tanto a tanto duol" at 3:55 is pretty astonishingly intense. Her top notes sometimes lack ideal richness, but her lower and middle registers are outstanding.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 1, 2020

Featured Artist - Enrico Caruso*









*Enrico Caruso - The Complete Victor Recordings - Part One *









*Verdi: Rigoletto: Act I: "Questa o quella" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1904) -*






*Verdi: Rigoletto: Act III - "La donna è mobile" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1904) - *






*Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore: Act II: "Una furtiva lagrima ... Un solo instante" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1904) -
*





*Enrico Caruso* (25 February 1873 - 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic.

One of the first major singing talents to be commercially recorded, Caruso made approximately 260 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920, which made him an international popular entertainment star.

Caruso's 25-year career, stretching from 1895 to 1920, included 863 appearances at the New York Metropolitan Opera before he died at the age of 48. Thanks in part to his tremendously popular phonograph records, Caruso was one of the most famous personalities of his day and his fame has endured to the present. He was one of the first examples of a global media celebrity.

Beyond records, Caruso's name became familiar to millions through newspapers, books, magazines, and the new media technology of the 20th century: cinema, the telephone and telegraph.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

During the month of February the original twelve featured artists will gradually transition to the following historic opera singers -

(in order of appearance) -

*Geraldine Farrar

Jussi Björling

Mafalda Favero

Fernando De Lucia

Elisabeth Rethberg

Ezio Pinza

Luisa Tetrazzini

Giovanni Martinelli

Maria Barrientos

Aureliano Pertile

Nellie Melba

Alexander Kipnis
*

*Enrico Caruso* will be the featured artist on the 1st, 11th, and 21st of each month with the Complete Victor Recordings being presented in their entirety.

Of the original twelve featured artists the following will eventually be making return appearances for Volume Two -

*Beniamino Gigli

Rosa Ponselle

Tito Schipa

Amelita Galli-Curci

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 2, 2020

Featured Artist - Geraldine Farrar*









*Geraldine Farrar in Italian Opera - Part One - *









*Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492: "Voi che sapete" -

Geraldine Farrar - (Recorded 1908) -*






*Mozart: Don Giovanni, K. 527: "Batti, batti, o bel Masetto" -

Geraldine Farrar - (Recorded 1908) -*






*Wolf-Ferrari: Le Donne Curiose: "Rimprovera la mia curiosita...Tutta per te" -

Geraldine Farrar - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Alice Geraldine Farrar* (February 28, 1882 - March 11, 1967) was an American soprano opera singer and film actress, noted for her beauty, acting ability, and "the intimate timbre of her voice."She had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed "Gerry-flappers".

Farrar created a sensation at the Berlin Hofoper with her debut as Marguerite in Charles Gounod's Faust in 1901 and remained with the company for three years, during which time she continued her studies with famed German soprano Lilli Lehmann. (She had been recommended to Lehmann by another famous soprano of the previous generation, Lillian Nordica.) She appeared in the title roles of Ambroise Thomas' Mignon and Jules Massenet's Manon, as well as Juliette in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 3, 2020

Featured Artist - Tito Schipa*









*Tito Schipa 1913-1937 - Part Five -*









*Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore - "Adina, credimi" -

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1928) -*






*Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore - "Una furtiva lagrima" -

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1929) -*






*Massenet: Manon: "Dispar, vision" -

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1934) -*






*Massenet: Werther: "Ah! Non mi ridestar" -

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1934) -*






"*Tito Schipa* (2 January 1889 in Lecce - 16 December 1965) was an Italian tenor, considered the greatest tenore di grazia and one of the most popular tenors of the century.

Schipa's stage repertoire, which in his early career had encompassed a wide range of Verdi and Puccini roles, eventually contracted to about 20 congenial Italian and French operatic roles, including Massenet's Werther, Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore and Cilea's L'arlesiana. In concert, Schipa performed a preferred array of lyrical operatic arias and songs, including Neapolitan and Spanish popular songs."

_"Tito Schipa had something far more important than high notes: a great singing line. One of the most ingratiating of singers, with refined enunciation of text, elegant phrasing and superb musicianship, he held a prominent place in the light Italian romantic tenor repertoire during his long and successful career. _
- Luis Eduardo Goncalves Gabarra


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 4, 2020 -

"Legendary Opera Duets" - Part Five -*
















*(Pictured: Beniamino Gigli)*

*Bizet: Les Pêcheurs de Perles - "Au fond du temple saint" -

Adolfo Pacini and Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1919) -*













*(Pictured: Lauritz Melchior)*

*Verdi: Aida: "Già, sacerdoti"

Margarethe Arndt-Ober and Lauritz Melchior - (Recorded 1925) -*













*(Pictured: Marcella Sembrich)*

*Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro: "Sull'aria"

Emma Eames and Marcella Sembrich - (Recorded 1908) -*













*(Pictured: Tito Schipa) *

*Bellini: La sonnambula: "Prendi, l'anel ti dono" -

Tito Schipa and Toti Dal Monte - (Recorded 1932) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 5, 2020

Featured Artist - Claudia Muzio -*









*Claudia Muzio 1911-1935 - Part Five -*









*Delibes: "Les Filles de Cadix" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






*Delibes: "Bonjour, Suzon" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






*Bellini: La Sonnambula: "Ah! Non credea mirarti" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






*Claudia Muzio* (7 February 1889 - 24 May 1936) was an Italian operatic soprano who enjoyed an international career during the early 20th century.

Muzio was noted for the beauty and warmth of her voice, which, although not particularly large, acquired a considerable richness of tonal colouring as she grew older. Her performances were sometimes criticised for excessive use of dynamic extremes, including her exquisitely expressive pianissimo singing.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 6, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Alessandro Bonci*









*Alessandro Bonci - The Fonotipia recordings 1905-1907 - Part Five -*









*Flotow: Martha: "M'apparì tutt' amor" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Gounod: Faust: "Salve dimora" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Massenet: Werther: "Ah non mi ridestar" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Alessandro Bonci* (February 10, 1870 - August 9, 1940) was an Italian lyric tenor known internationally for his association with the bel canto repertoire. He sang at many famous theatres, including New York's Metropolitan Opera, Milan's La Scala and London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Bonci was a demure man and his voice was not overly large. It was sweet-toned, stylish and supple, with excellent high notes and an easy high C. He sang with what at the time would have been considered a standard vibrato, though later generations preferred a slower one.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 7, 2020

Featured Artist - Emmy Destinn*









*Emmy Destinn 1907-1921 - Part Five -*









*Wagner: Tannhäuser, WWV. 70: "Allmächtige Jungfrau" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1914) -*






*Dvořák: Rusalka, Op. 114: "Lieblicher Mond" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1915) -*






*Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera: "Morro ma prima in grazia" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1921) -*






*Smetana: Hubicka, JB 1:104: "Ukolebavka (Cradle Song)" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1921) -*






*Emmy Destinn* - (Ema Destinnová - (26 February 1878 - 28 January 1930) was a Czech operatic soprano with a strong and soaring lyric-dramatic voice. She had a career both in Europe and at the New York Metropolitan Opera.

While she was highly successful in the lighter roles of Wagner's operas, her spinto voice-although large in size, with a ringing top register-was better suited to German music of a less declamatory type. She also excelled in the French part of Carmen, in which she was said to rival Calvé, and in the Italian roles of Aida, Madama Butterfly and Leonora (in Il trovatore).


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## Phantoms of the Opera (Feb 5, 2020)

I love Destinn! I always say that if I could have anyone’s voice instead of mine, I would want hers. She was also a fun Character!


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 8, 2020 -*
















*(Pictured: Helge Rosvaenge)*

*Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - "Selig, wie die Sonne" -

Hans Reinmar, Max Kuttner, Helge Rosvaenge, Lydia Kindermann, Pearl Yoder*

*(Recorded 1932) - *













*(Pictured: Aureliano Pertile)*

*Verdi: Aida: Act II, "Salvator della patria, io ti saluto" -

Guglielmo Masini, Luigi Manfrini, Giovanni Inghilleri, Irene Minghini-Cattaneo, Dusolina Giannini, Aureliano Pertile

(Recorded 1928) - *













*(Pictured: Ezio Pinza)*

*Verdi: Attila: Act III, "Te sol quest'anima" -

Ezio Pinza, Beniamino Gigli, Elisabeth Rethberg

(Recorded 1930) - *


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 9, 2020

Featured Artist - César Vezzani*









*César Vezzani 1912-1925 - Part Four -*









*Massenet: Manon - "En ferment les yeux" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Massenet: Manon - "Ah! fuyez douce image" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Massenet: Werther - "J'aurais sur me poitrine" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Massenet: Werther - "Pourquoi me reveiller" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1912) -*






*César Vezzani* (8 August 1888 - 11 November 1951) was a French/Corsican operatic tenor who became a leading exponent of French grand opera through several decades.

Critics have shown universal recognition of the exceptional quality of Vezzani's voice, though they have sometimes expressed reservations about the subtlety of his approach, which was generally robust.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 10, 2020

Featured Artist - Antonina Nezhdanova*









*Antonina Nezhdanova 1906-1939 - Part Five -*









*Grieg: "Solveig's Song" (from Peer Gynt) -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1935) - *






*Sergei Pototsky: "Collective Farm Song" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1938) -*






*Nikolai Chemberdzhi: "Smile" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1938) -*






*Antonina Vasilievna Nezhdanova* (4 June] 1873 - 26 June 1950), was a Russian lyric coloratura soprano. An outstanding opera singer, she represented the Russian vocal school at its best.

Nezhdanova made a number of recordings that display the beauty and flexibility of her voice and the excellence of her technique. She is considered by opera historians and critics to have been one of the finest sopranos of the 20th century.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 11, 2020

Featured Artist - Enrico Caruso*









*Enrico Caruso - The Complete Victor Recordings - Part Two*









*Verdi: Aida: Act I: "Celeste Aida"

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1904) -*






*Puccini: Tosca: Act III: "E lucevan le stelle"

Enrico Caruso - (1904 Recording) -*






*Puccini: Tosca: Act I: "Recondita armonia" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1904) - *






*Enrico Caruso* (25 February 1873 - 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic.

One of the first major singing talents to be commercially recorded, Caruso made approximately 260 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920, which made him an international popular entertainment star.

Caruso's voice extended up to high D-flat in its prime and grew in power and weight as he grew older. At times, his voice took on a dark, almost baritonal coloration. He sang a broad spectrum of roles, ranging from lyric, to spinto, to dramatic parts, in the Italian and French repertoires. In the German repertoire, Caruso sang only two roles, Assad (in Karl Goldmark's The Queen of Sheba) and Richard Wagner's Lohengrin, both of which he performed in Italian in Buenos Aires in 1899 and 1901, respectively.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 12, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Antonio Cortis*









*Antonio Cortis 1925-1930 - Part Five -*









*Puccini: La Bohème - "Che gelida manina" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1930) -*






*Puccini: La Bohème - "Mimì è una civetta" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1925) -*






*Donizetti: La Favorita: "Una vergine, un angel di Dio" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1925) -*






*Antonio Cortis* (12 August 1891 - 2 April 1952) was a Spanish tenor with an outstanding voice. He was acclaimed by audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for his exciting performances of Italian operatic works, especially those by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and the verismo composers.

Cortis came to be regarded as one of the best inter-war interpreters of verismo opera. He was particularly praised for his performances of Calaf and of Dick Johnson in Puccini's La fanciulla del West, while he sang with remarkable ease the strenuous music composed for the tenor voice by Umberto Giordano and Pietro Mascagni. Cortis also undertook Verdi roles, such as the Duke in Rigoletto, which he delivered with impressive skill and style.

Cortis made a number of top-quality recordings of operatic arias and songs in 1925-1930, mainly for HMV but also for the Victor label. They consist of pieces by Gounod, Meyerbeer, Massenet, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini, Giordano and Mascagni, and by Spanish composers such as Gaztambide, Vives and Serrano.

For a public performer, Cortis possessed a comparatively reserved personality. This natural reticence may have prevented him from making the most of career opportunities when they presented themselves. Nevertheless, music critics consider his potent, dark-coloured voice to be one of the finest lyric-dramatic tenor instruments ever captured on disc. No mere 'belter', he sang with imagination and sound musicianship as well as thrilling tone.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 13, 2020-*









*Age Of Bel Canto - Part Five -*








*(Pictured: Toti dal Monte)*

*Donizetti: La figlia del regimento: "Lo dice ognun" -

Toti dal Monte - (Recorded 1928) - *













*(Pictured: Toti dal Monte)*

*Donizetti: Don Pasquale: "Tornami a dir che m'ami" -

Toti dal Monte and Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1933) -*













*(Pictured: Tito Schipa)*

*Handel: Serse - "Ombra mai fu" -

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1909) - *













*(Pictured: Julius Patzak)*

*Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail, K384 -

"Konstanze, dich wiederzusehen" -

Julius Patzak - (Recorded - 1935) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 14, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Amelita Galli-Curci*









*Amelita Galli-Curci Volume 1 1917-1924 - Part Five -*









*Bellini: La Sonnambula - "Sovra il sen la man mi posa" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1919) -*






*Bellini: La Sonnambula - "Son gelosa del zefiro" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Acqua: "Villanelle" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1920) -*






*Amelita Galli-Curc*i (18 November 1882 - 26 November 1963) was an Italian coloratura soprano. She was one of the most popular operatic singers of the 20th century, with her recordings selling in large numbers.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 15, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Giacomo Lauri-Volpi*









*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi 1922-1942 - Part Five -*









*Gomes: Lo Schiavo: "Quando nascesti tu" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1929) -*






*Offenbach: Les contes d'Hoffmann: "Légende de Kleinzack" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1929) -*






*Bizet: Carmen: "La fleur que tu m'avais jetée" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1930) -*






*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi* (11 December 1892 - 17 March 1979) was an Italian tenor with a lyric-dramatic voice of exceptional range and technical facility. He performed throughout Europe and the Americas in a top-class career that spanned 40 years.

Lauri-Volpi was widely acclaimed for his performances at Italy's most celebrated opera house, La Scala, Milan, between the two world wars. A highlight of his Milan seasons occurred in 1929 when he was chosen to sing Arnoldo in La Scala's centenary production of Rossini's Guglielmo Tell.

He was also a leading tenor at the New York Metropolitan Opera from 1923 to 1933, appearing there in a total of 307 performances. During this 10-year period he sang opposite Maria Jeritza in the American premiere of Puccini's Turandot and opposite Rosa Ponselle in the Met premiere of Verdi's Luisa Miller. His Met career was terminated prematurely after a dispute with the opera house's management.

Lauri-Volpi's most notable appearances outside Italy also included two seasons at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden-in 1925 and 1936. By the latter date, he had broadened his repertoire, progressing from lyric roles to more taxing dramatic parts. His voice began to show consequent signs of wear in the 1940s, losing homogeneity. His thrilling top notes remained remarkably intact, however, right through until the 1950s.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the Day of February 16, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Ernestine Schumann-Heink*









*Ernestine Schumann-Heink 1906-1929 - Part Five -*









*Brahms: Wiegenlied, Op. 49 No. 4 -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1915) -*






*Bohm, C: "Still wie die Nacht" -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1921) -*






*Traditional.: "Du, du liegst mir im Herzen" -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Ernestine Schumann-Heink* (15 June 1861 - 17 November 1936) was an Austrian-born German-American operatic contralto of German Bohemian descent. She was noted for the size, beauty, tonal richness, flexibility and wide range of her voice.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 17, 2020 -*









*The Sopranos - Part Six -*








*(Pictured: Licia Albanese)*

*Puccini: La Bohème - "Si. Mi chiamano Mimì"

Licia Albanese - (Recorded 1938) - *













*(Pictured: Adelaide Saraceni)*

*Donizetti: Don Pasquale: "Quel guardo il cavaliere...So anch'io la virtù magica" -

Adelaide Saraceni - (Recorded 1932) - *













*(Pictured: Celestina Boninsegna)*

*Ponchielli: La Gioconda -"Suicidio! In questi fieri momenti" -

Celestina Boninsegna - (Recorded 1907) -*













(Pictured: Lily Pons)

*Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor: "Spargi d'amato pianto" -

Lily Pons - (Recorded 1930) - *


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

There is a companion thread to this one which covers "Historic Popular Vocalists - 1910 - 1949" -

Historic Popular Vocalists - 1910 - 1949 - Songs of the Day Calendar...


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 18, 2020

Featured Artist - Beniamino Gigli*









*Beniamino Gigli Volume 1 1918-1924 - Part Six -*









*Catalani: Loreley: "Nel verde Maggio" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Saint-Saëns: "Il Canto del Cigno" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Flotow: Martha: "M'apparì tutt' amor" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Beniamino Gigli* (20 March 1890 - 30 November 1957) was an Italian opera singer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tenors of his generation.

Gigli rose to true international prominence after the death of the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso in 1921. Such was his popularity with audiences he was often called "Caruso Secondo", though he much preferred to be known as "Gigli Primo". In fact, the comparison was not valid as Caruso had a bigger, darker, more heroic voice than Gigli's sizable yet honey-toned lyric instrument.

Early in his career, Gigli possessed a beautiful, soft and honey-like lyric voice, with incredible mezza-voice, allowing him to sing light, lyrical roles. As he grew older, his voice developed some dramatic qualities, enabling him to sing heavier roles like Aida and Tosca. Some critics say that he was over-emotional during his performances, often resolving to sobbing and in some cases, exaggerations.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 19, 2020

Featured Artist - Geraldine Farrar*









*Geraldine Farrar in Italian Opera - Part Two -*









*Wolf-Ferrari: Il segreto di Susanna: "O giola la nube leggera" -

Geraldine Farrar - (Recorded 1913) -*






*Puccini: La Bohème, Act 1 No. 7: "Si, mi chiamano Mimì" -

Geraldine Farrar - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Puccini: La Bohème = "O soave fanciulla"*

*Enrico Caruso and Geraldine Farrar - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Alice Geraldine Farrar* (February 28, 1882 - March 11, 1967) was an American soprano opera singer and film actress, noted for her beauty, acting ability, and "the intimate timbre of her voice.

She recorded extensively for the Victor Talking Machine Company and was often featured prominently in that firm's advertisements. She was one of the first performers to make a radio broadcast in a 1907 publicity event singing over Lee De Forest's experimental AM radio transmitter in New York City. She also appeared in silent movies, which were filmed between opera seasons. Farrar starred in more than a dozen films from 1915 to 1920, including Cecil B. De Mille's 1915 adaptation of Georges Bizet's opera Carmen, for which she was extensively praised.


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## Palimpsests (Feb 16, 2020)

A wonderful thread that brings us down the memory lane of the greats from the past. Really lovely to see that Claudia Muzio is featured prominently here. She is one of my absolute favourites.

I see that so far selections from her Columbias (1934-35) have been posted here. There are certainly the most affecting of her recorded output and among the jewels of the gramophone. Yet, hope that sometime in near future you could come to feature her Edisons (1920-25), recorded when she was in her vocal prime, while her artistry had by then reached maturity. There are many jewels among the Edisons and for me these two really stand out:

'Sorgi o padre' from Bellini's Bianca e Fernando (1922), which shows off her bel canto schooling to great effect:






'Son pochi fiori' from Mascagni's L'amico Fritz (1923):


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## Palimpsests (Feb 16, 2020)

[Further to my earlier post, which would only become visible after approval by a Moderator - really don't know what has prompted such measure.]

Oh, how could I have forgotten about this......this is another must-hear among Muzio's Edisons - 'Chère nuit' (Bachelet) (1920):


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Muzio was incapable of making an unfelt sound.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 20, 2020

Featured Artist - Jussi Björling*









*Jussi Björling - The First Ten Years - Part One*









*Verdi: Il Trovatore: "Di quella pira" -

Jussi Björling - (Recorded 1934) -*






*Puccini: Tosca - "Recondita armonia" -

Jussi Björling - (Recorded 1933) -*






*Puccini: Tosca - "E lucevan le stelle" -

Jussi Björling - (Recorded 1933) -*






*Johan Jonatan "Jussi" Björling* (5 February 1911 - 9 September 1960) was a Swedish tenor. One of the leading operatic singers of the 20th century, Björling appeared for many years at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and less frequently at the major European opera houses, including the Royal Opera House in London and La Scala in Milan.

Luciano Pavarotti, in a 1988 interview for the Swedish daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, stated that "When I'm about to train a new opera, I first listen to how Jussi Björling did it. His voice was unique and it's his path that I want to follow. I would more than anything else wish that people compared me with Jussi Björling. That's how I'm striving to sing."


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## Palimpsests (Feb 16, 2020)

duplicated post, so deleted.


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## Palimpsests (Feb 16, 2020)

Woodduck said:


> Muzio was incapable of making an unfelt sound.


Can't agree more. Meanwhile, my earlier post in this thread, containing Muzio's Edison recordings of arias from Bellini's _Bianca e Fernando _ and Mascagni's _L'amico Fritz_, is finally visible. Enjoy...these are among her very best recordings.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Palimpsests said:


> Can't agree more. Meanwhile, my earlier post in this thread, containing Muzio's Edison recordings of arias from Bellini's _Bianca e Fernando _ and Mascagni's _L'amico Fritz_, is finally visible. Enjoy...these are among her very best recordings.


What post number?


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## Palimpsests (Feb 16, 2020)

Woodduck said:


> What post number?


No. 132

(This site doesn't accept replies with very short answers...have to type at least 15 characters for this post to come out.)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Palimpsests said:


> No. 132
> 
> (This site doesn't accept replies with very short answers...have to type at least 15 characters for this post to come out.)


Thanks.

Neat trick: follow your short post with periods and color them white.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 21, 2020

Featured Artist - Enrico Caruso*









*Enrico Caruso - The Complete Victor Recordings - Part Three*









*Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana: "O Lola (Siciliana)"

Enrico Caruso - (1904 Recording) - *






*Leoncavallo: I Pagliacci: Act I: "Recitar! mentre preso dal delirio ... Vesti la giubba"

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1904) -*






*Massenet: Manon: Act II: "Chiudo gli occhi - Il Sogno" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1904) -*






*Enrico Caruso* (25 February 1873 - 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic. One of the first major singing talents to be commercially recorded, Caruso made approximately 260 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920, which made him an international popular entertainment star.

Caruso's 25-year career, stretching from 1895 to 1920, included 863 appearances at the New York Metropolitan Opera before he died at the age of 48. Thanks in part to his tremendously popular phonograph records, Caruso was one of the most famous personalities of his day and his fame has endured to the present. He was one of the first examples of a global media celebrity. Beyond records, Caruso's name became familiar to millions through newspapers, books, magazines, and the new media technology of the 20th century: cinema, the telephone and telegraph.

Caruso's voice extended up to high D-flat in its prime and grew in power and weight as he grew older. At times, his voice took on a dark, almost baritonal coloration. He sang a broad spectrum of roles, ranging from lyric, to spinto, to dramatic parts, in the Italian and French repertoires. In the German repertoire, Caruso sang only two roles, Assad (in Karl Goldmark's The Queen of Sheba) and Richard Wagner's Lohengrin, both of which he performed in Italian in Buenos Aires in 1899 and 1901, respectively.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 22, 2020 -

"Legendary Opera Duets" - Part Six -*
















*(Pictured: Enrico Caruso and Antonio Scotti)*

*Verdi: Don Carlo: "Dio che nell'alma in fondere" -

Enrico Caruso and Antonio Scotti - (Recorded 1912) -*













*(Pictured: Giuseppe de Luca and Beniamino Gigli)*

*Verdi: La forza del destino: "Solenne in quest'ora" -

Giuseppe de Luca and Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1927) -*













*(Pictured: Tito Schipa and Mafalda Favero)*

*Mascagni: L'amico Fritz - "Suzel, buon di -('Cherry Duet') -

Tito Schipa and Mafalda Favero - (Recorded 1927) - *













*(Pictured: Pasquale Amato)*

*Bellini: I puritani: "Suoni la tromba" -

Pasquale Amato and Marcel Journet - (Recorded 1912) - *


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## Palimpsests (Feb 16, 2020)

Duncan said:


> *Mascagni: L'amico Fritz - "Suzel, buon di -('Cherry Duet') -
> 
> Tito Schipa and Mafalda Favero - (Recorded 1927) - *


Here's a recording of the Cherry Duet that matches the famous Schipa&Favero version - A young, exquisite and deeply touching Magda Olivero with Ferruccio Tagliavini, recorded for Cetra in 1940:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Palimpsests said:


> Here's a recording of the Cherry Duet that matches the famous Schipa&Favero version - A young, exquisite and deeply touching Magda Olivero with Ferruccio Tagliavini, recorded for Cetra in 1940:


Superb performance, but I can't say that I take much pleasure in Olivero's reedy tone and tremulous vibrato. A peculiar voice.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> Superb performance, but I can't say that I take much pleasure in Olivero's reedy tone and tremulous vibrato. A peculiar voice.


Upon researching Magda Olivero...

"The Italian prima donna Magda Olivero had one of the most remarkable careers of the 20th century, above all as a leading exponent of the often-derided art of the verismo soprano. The post-Romantic realism of the verismo movement in Italian opera, notably in works by Giacomo Puccini, Francesco Cilea, Franco Alfano, Umberto Giordano and Pietro Mascagni, provided an ideal vehicle for her compelling presence, and brought her a great following.

Despite Olivero's prewar recordings, which notably included Liù in Turandot (1938), in the 1950s she was virtually ignored by the recording industry, while the rivalry between admirers of Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi made them into household names all over the world. One of Olivero's greatest triumphs as Adriana came in Naples in 1959, when she replaced Tebaldi at the last moment and took part in a performance which was recorded and has remained one of the jewels of the so-called "pirate" recording repertory. With Franco Corelli, Giulietta Simionato and Ettore Bastianini, it is a full-blooded performance of Cilea's opera in which it is easy to hear how Olivero's intense, melodramatic, yet always tightly controlled singing transforms the sometimes tawdry melodrama into something searing.

Olivero replaced Tebaldi again when the same production travelled to the Edinburgh festival in 1963, and she returned in 1969 in the seven short dramatic episodes of Gian Francesco Malipiero's Sette Canzoni. By then she had become a leading figure, especially because of her success in the US, where she made her debut at Dallas in 1968 in the title role of Cherubini's Medea. Her voice had darkened, so that the contrast between her use of pianissimi - Olivero was fond of holding on to the softest notes for the longest possible time and then practically exploding them with a fast crescendo - and the weighty mezzoish tones in her lower register made her performances seem the epitome of the age of verismo."

- The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/14/magda-olivero

"Magda Olivero, an Italian soprano who for decades whipped audiences around the world into a frenzy of adulation that was operatic even by operatic standards - despite the fact that by her own ready admission she did not possess an especially lovely voice - died on Monday in Milan. She was 104.

For decades, bootleg recordings of Miss Olivero's voice, tenderly husbanded, passed from hand to covert hand among her legions of acolytes. At live performances, she took the stage to screams of ecstasy and left it to thundering ovations.

Nevertheless, some concertgoers, and many critics, found her singing untenable.

Writing in The Times in 1969, Peter G. Davis reviewed Miss Olivero in her most famous role, the title part in Francesco Cilea's "Adriana Lecouvreur," with the Connecticut Opera Association in Hartford.

"Her voice is not a beautiful one by conventional standards," he said. "The tight vibrato, hollow chest tone and occasionally piercing upper register are qualities that one must adjust to."

She was often called the last of the verismo sopranos, hewing to the end of her life to an operatic tradition - grandiose, stylized, hyper-realistic and nothing if not melodramatic - that had its heyday at the turn of the 20th century in works by Leoncavallo, Mascagni and Puccini.

Though the instrument with which nature endowed her was not Olympian, her arduous training gave her such immense technical facility - crystalline diction, superb breath control, exquisite mastery of tone and dynamics - that she could imbue her work with a level of interpretive nuance that can elude even great singers. On Miss Olivero's lips, as her admirers often observed, song sounded almost as natural as speech.

The net effect, at once titanic and intimate, was the experience of opera in amber, for Miss Olivero was almost certainly the last avatar of the grand histrionics, and genuinely grand singing, that typified a shimmering era in which opera was pitched to the last balcony.

Miss Olivero was well aware that she fared better with fans than with critics. By all accounts as demure off the stage as she was electrifying on it, she appeared to take the disparity in stride.

"I never had a voice," she said in 1993. "What I had was expression, a face, a body, the truth. If one prefers the opposite, that is their right."

Hearing her audition (she sang "Mi chiamano Mimì," from Puccini's "La Bohème"), the conductor Ugo Tansini, as was widely reported years afterward, pronounced judgment:

"She possesses neither voice, musicality nor personality. Nothing. Absolutely nothing! She should look for another profession."

- The New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/...ero-frenzy-inspiring-soprano-dies-at-104.html

"Magda Olivero, née Maria Maddalena Olivero (25 March 1910 - 8 September 2014), was an Italian operatic soprano. Her career started in 1932 when she was 22, and spanned five decades establishing her "as an important link between the era of the verismo composers and the modern opera stage". She has been regarded as "one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century"

Despite having a large cult following everywhere, Magda Olivero was never at the centre of the operatic star system, being largely restricted to Italian provincial theatres, and she was almost completely ignored by the official record industry.

In spite of the scanty interest shown by the official record industry, live recordings exist of many of her performances that are fully able to document her great artistic skills. The extent of Olivero's ability was identified by her great admirer Marilyn Horne, who, in 1975, firmly insisted that the Met should at last engage Olivero: "she practically gave acting and singing lessons while onstage; honestly, you could learn more from watching an Olivero performance than from reading most books on those very subjects."

- Wikipedia biography - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magda_Olivero

Definition of "verismo singing" -

The verismo opera style featured music that required more declamatory singing, in contrast to the traditional tenets of elegant, 19th century bel canto singing that had preceded the movement. Opera singers adapted to the demands of the new style. The most extreme exponents of verismo vocalism sang habitually in a vociferous fashion, often forfeiting legato to focus on the passionate aspect of the music. They would 'beef up' the timbre of their voices, use excessive amounts of vocal fold mass on their top notes, and often employ a conspicuous vibrato in order to accentuate the emotionalism of their ardent interpretations. The results could be exciting in the theatre but such a strenuous mode of singing was not a recipe for vocal longevity. Some prominent practitioners of full-throttle verismo singing during the movement's Italian lifespan (circa 1890 to circa 1930) include the sopranos Eugenia Burzio, Lina Bruna Rasa and Bianca Scacciati, the tenors Aureliano Pertile, Cesar Vezzani and Amadeo Bassi, and the baritones Mario Sammarco and Eugenio Giraldoni.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verismo_(music)


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## Palimpsests (Feb 16, 2020)

Woodduck said:


> Superb performance, but I can't say that I take much pleasure in Olivero's reedy tone and tremulous vibrato. A peculiar voice.


Like Muzio, Olivero epitomised the verismo style in the Italian repertoire. She has been widely acknowledged by those who heard her as a superb musician and a vocal actress of gripping intensity. Her vocal timbre is highly individualistic (some would say idiosyncratic) and immediately recognisable. Understandably her fast, fluttering vibrato is not to all tastes. She enjoyed an extraordinary long career, singing well into her 70s. On the whole, I prefer her earlier recordings (Liu in 1938 Cetra recording of Turandot and the operatic arias discs recorded for Cetra in 1939-40, just before a ten-year break due to marriage) to her later ones.

Interestingly, Olivero's and Callas' paths crossed once, at the Arena di Verona in July 1954, where they alternated for the role of Margherita in Boito's Mefistofele. They never actually met each other in person.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 23, 2020

Featured Artist - Claudia Muzio -*









*Claudia Muzio 1911-1935 - Part Six -*









*Refice: "Ombre di Nube" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






*Verdi: La Traviata: "Teneste la promessa...Addio del passato" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1935) -*






*Puccini: La Bohème: "Si, mi chiamano Mimì" -

Claudia Muzio - (Recorded 1911) -*






*Claudia Muzio* (7 February 1889 - 24 May 1936) was an Italian operatic soprano who enjoyed an international career during the early 20th century.

Muzio was noted for the beauty and warmth of her voice, which, although not particularly large, acquired a considerable richness of tonal colouring as she grew older. Her performances were sometimes criticised for excessive use of dynamic extremes, including her exquisitely expressive pianissimo singing. She remained modest and even reclusive despite her increasing fame and wealth.

Once described by Giacomo Lauri-Volpi as a voice "made of tears and sighs and restrained interior fire" Claudia Muzio is one of the more important figures in opera of the first half of the 20th Century.

Muzio did not have a voice of tremendous size, nor did her voice have the luster and facility of many of her peers, but what she lacked in vocal gifts she made up for in expression, intense emotional outpouring and an honest intimacy that consistently won over audiences throughout the world. Especially skilled in revealing the psychology of her heroines, and in similar approach to Chaliapin before her, it was her vocal acting that she prioritized over all else. Because of this Muzio was a truly transcendent verismo artist, even if her voice is not as stellar as other sopranos of her stature.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 24, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Alessandro Bonci*









*Alessandro Bonci - The Fonotipia recordings 1905-1907 - Part Six -*









*Verdi: Rigoletto - "Questa o quella" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1905) -*






*Verdi: Rigoletto - "La donna è mobile" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1905) -*






*Verdi: Rigoletto - "Bella figlia dell' amore" -

Alessandro Bonci, Antonio Magini-Coletti, Giannina Lucacewska, Regina Pinkert - (Recorded 1905) -*






*Alessandro Bonci* (February 10, 1870 - August 9, 1940) was an Italian lyric tenor known internationally for his association with the bel canto repertoire. He sang at many famous theatres, including New York's Metropolitan Opera, Milan's La Scala and London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Bonci's high notes extended to a brilliant and ringing C-sharp, and possibly even D. His cadenzas and his abilities to diminish a single high long note added to his fame. There was a constant use of an acciaccatura to propel the high notes.

Bonci was a demure man and his voice was not overly large. It was sweet-toned, stylish and supple, with excellent high notes and an easy high C. He sang with what at the time would have been considered a standard vibrato, though later generations (until our own) preferred a slower one.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 25, 2020

Featured Artist - Emmy Destinn*









*Emmy Destinn 1907-1921 - Part Six -*









*Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame - "Es geht auf Mitternacht" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1915) -*






*Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame - "O viens" -

Emmy Destinn - (Recorded 1915) -*






*Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame - "Es dämmert" -

Emmy Destinn and Maria Duchêne - (Recorded 1915) -*






*Emmy Destinn* (26 February 1878 - 28 January 1930) was a Czech operatic soprano with a strong and soaring lyric-dramatic voice. She had a career both in Europe and at the New York Metropolitan Opera.

Destinn made her London debut at Covent Garden's Royal Opera House on 2 May 1904, as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. She appeared there in several operas for the next two seasons, including the London premiere of Madama Butterfly with Caruso. Her Metropolitan Opera debut came in 1908 with an acclaimed performance of Aida, after she was released from her contract with the Berlin Court Opera. Two years later at the Met, she created the role of Minnie in the premiere of Puccini's La fanciulla del West, again opposite Caruso, and under the direction of Arturo Toscanini.

While she was highly successful in the lighter roles of Wagner's operas, her spinto voice-although large in size, with a ringing top register-was better suited to German music of a less declamatory type. She also excelled in the French part of Carmen, in which she was said to rival Calvé, and in the Italian roles of Aida, Madama Butterfly and Leonora (in Il trovatore).

*Maria Duchêne-Billiard* (1884 - ?) was a French contralto of the Metropolitan Opera from 1912 to 1916. She portrayed such roles as Amneris in Aida, Giulietta in The Tales of Hoffmann, Lola in Cavalleria rusticana, Maddalena in Rigoletto. She sang the role of the Old Woman in L'amore dei tre re, Rosette in Manon, Schwertleite in Die Walküre, and the Solo Madrigalist in Manon Lescaut among others.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 26, 2020 -*
















*(Pictured: Lawrence Tibbett)*

*Verdi: Otello: Act I, "Ineffia l'ugola" -

Lawrence Tibbett, Hermann Dreeben, Nicholas Massue - (Recorded 1939) -*













*(Pictured: Helge Rosvaenge)*

*Verdi: La traviata: Act I, "Libiam ne' lieti calici" -

Heinrich Schlusnus, Helge Rosvaenge, Maria Cebotari - (Recorded 1943) -*













*(Pictured: Luisa Tetrazzini)*

*Verdi: Rigoletto: Act IV, "Bella figlia dell'amore" -

Pasquale Amato, Enrico Caruso, Josephine Jacoby, Luisa Tetrazzini - (Recorded 1912) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 27, 2020

Featured Artist - César Vezzani*









*César Vezzani 1912-1925 - Part Five -*









*Rossini: Guillaume Tell: "Asile Héréditaire" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Verdi: Jerusalem: "Je veux entendre" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana: "Moi seul…Ah! servez de mère" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1925) -*






*César Vezzani* (8 August 1888 - 11 November 1951) was a French/Corsican operatic tenor who became a leading exponent of French grand opera through several decades.

Critics have shown universal recognition of the exceptional quality of Vezzani's voice, though they have sometimes expressed reservations about the subtlety of his approach, which was generally robust.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 28, 2020

Featured Artist - Antonina Nezhdanova*









*Antonina Nezhdanova 1906-1939 - Part Six -*









*Ivan Kochetov: "Nightly Campfire" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1938) -*






*Serrano, J: "By the Moon" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1939) -*






*Glazunov: Masquerade: "Nina's song" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1939) -*






*Valverde, J: "Clavelitos" -

Antonina Nezhdanova - (Recorded 1939) - *






*Antonina Vasilievna Nezhdanova* (16 June [O.S. 4 June] 1873 - 26 June 1950), was a Russian lyric coloratura soprano. An outstanding opera singer, she represented the Russian vocal school at its best.

She is considered by opera historians and critics to have been one of the finest sopranos of the 20th century.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of February 29, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Antonio Cortis*









*Antonio Cortis 1925-1930 - Part Six -*









*Giordano, U: La Cena delle Beffe - "Ah, che tormento" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1927) -*






*Giordano, U: La Cena delle Beffe - "Mi svesti" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1927) -*






*Vives: Dona Francisquita: "Mujer fatal" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1925) -*






*Antonio Cortis* (12 August 1891 - 2 April 1952) was a Spanish tenor with an outstanding voice. He was acclaimed by audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for his exciting performances of Italian operatic works, especially those by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and the verismo composers.

He made his stage debut in 1912 at the Liceo in Barcelona as a comprimario singer, but he gradually worked his way up to major roles at a variety of opera houses in Spain and South America, including the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. On the South American tour of 1917, the young tenor was befriended by the Metropolitan Opera star Enrico Caruso, who encouraged him to pursue his singing career in New York City. Cortis declined Caruso's offer of help due to personal reasons but he would henceforth model his singing technique on Caruso's great example.

His international career began in earnest with successful appearances in Naples and, more importantly, at Rome's Teatro Costanzi in 1920, where he signed a three-year contract. He proceeded to sing in Stockholm, Milan, Latin America and Berlin and, most famously, with the esteemed company at the Chicago Civic Opera from 1924 to 1932. His debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, occurred in 1931, as Calaf in Puccini's Turandot. He appeared often on the Italian opera-house circuit during the early 1930s but success at Milan's La Scala, with its entrenched roster of popular Italian-born tenors, eluded him.

Cortis came to be regarded as one of the best inter-war interpreters of verismo opera. He was particularly praised for his performances of Calaf and of Dick Johnson in Puccini's La fanciulla del West, while he sang with remarkable ease the strenuous music composed for the tenor voice by Umberto Giordano and Pietro Mascagni. Cortis also undertook Verdi roles, such as the Duke in Rigoletto, which he delivered with impressive skill and style.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I'm not posting a singing selection, but * Semiramide* is one of my favorite operas and these photos are quite amusing. Plus, the duets from Semiramide are central to the opera.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of March 1, 2020

Featured Artist - Enrico Caruso*









*Enrico Caruso - The Complete Victor Recordings - Part Four*









*Donizetti: Don Pasquale: Act III: "Com'è gentil (Serenata)" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1905) - *






*Bizet: Carmen: Act II: "Il fior che avevi a me tu dato"

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1905) - *






*Meyerbeer: Gli Ugonotti (Les Huguenots): Act I: "Ah, qual soave vision ... Bianca al par di neve"

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1905) - *






*Enrico Caruso* (25 February 1873 - 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic. One of the first major singing talents to be commercially recorded, Caruso made approximately 260 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920, which made him an international popular entertainment star.

His voice was sensuous, lyrical, and vigorous in dramatic outbursts and became progressively darker in timbre in his later years. Its appealing tenor qualities were unusually rich in lower registers and abounded in warmth, vitality, and smoothness.

Caruso's voice extended up to high D-flat in its prime and grew in power and weight as he grew older. At times, his voice took on a dark, almost baritonal coloration. He sang a broad spectrum of roles, ranging from lyric, to spinto, to dramatic parts, in the Italian and French repertoires.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of March 2, 2020-*









*Age Of Bel Canto - Part Six -*








*(Pictured: Tancredi Pasero)*

*Mozart: Don Giovanni: "Madamina, il catalogo è questo" -

Tancredi Pasero - (Recorded 1941) - *













*(Pictured: Tito Schipa) *








*(Pictured: Apollo Granforte)*

*Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia - ""Ecco ridente" -

Tito Schipa and Apollo Granforte - (Recorded 1926) -*






*Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia - ""Largo al factotum" -

Tito Schipa and Apollo Granforte - (Recorded 1926) -*













*(Pictured: Nicola Rossi-Lemeni)*

*Rossini: Guglielmo Tell: "Resta immobile" -

Nicola Ross-Lemeni - (Recorded 1951 - 1953) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

This is a link to an eBook made available by Project Gutenberg which was originally published in 1921 -

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33358/33358-h/33358-h.htm

*"GREAT SINGERS ON THE ART of SINGING"*

*EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCES
WITH FOREMOST ARTISTS*

*BY
JAMES FRANCIS COOKE*

*A SERIES
OF PERSONAL STUDY TALKS WITH
THE MOST RENOWNED OPERA
CONCERT AND ORATORIO
SINGERS OF THE TIME*

*ESPECIALLY PLANNED FOR
VOICE STUDENTS"*

*CONTENTS*

Introduction	5

The Technic of Operatic Production	21

What the American Girl Should Know About an Operatic Career *Frances Alda* 31

Modern Vocal Methods in Italy *Pasquale Amato* 38

The Main Elements of Interpretation *David Bispham* 45

Success in Concert Singing *Dame Clara Butt* 58

The Value of Self-Study in Voice Training *Giuseppe Campanari* 68

Italy, the Home of Song *Enrico Caruso* 79

Modern Roads To Vocal Success *Julia Claussen* 90

Self-Help in Voice Study *Charles Dalmores* 100

If My Daughter Should Study for Grand Opera *Andreas Dippel* 110

How a Great Master Coached Opera Singers  *Emma Eames* 121

The Open Door To Opera *Florence Easton* 133

What Must I Go Through to Become a Prima Donna? *Geraldine Farrar* 144

The Master Songs of Robert Schumann *Johanna Gadski* 154

Teaching Yourself to Sing *Amelita Galli-Curci* 166

The Know How in the Art of Singing *Mary Garden* 176

Building a Vocal Repertoire *Alma Gluck* 185

Opportunities for Young Concert Singers *Emilio de Gogorza* 191

Thoroughness in Vocal Preparation *Frieda Hempel* 200

Common Sense in Training and Preserving the Voice *Dame Nellie Melba* 207

Secrets of Bel Canto *Bernice de Pasquali* 217

How Fortunes Are Wasted in Vocal Education *Marcella Sembrich* 227

Keeping the Voice in Prime Condition *Ernestine Schumann-Heink* 235

Italian Opera in America *Antonio Scotti* 251

The Singer's Larger Musical Public *Henri Scott* 260

Singing in Concert and What It Means *Emma Thursby* 269

New Aspects of the Art of Singing in America *Reinald Werrenrath* 283

How I Regained a Lost Voice *Evan Williams* 292


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

There is a second companion thread that I've created to this one which covers "The Golden Age of Popular Vocalists - 1933 - 1963" which can be found here -

The Golden Age of Popular Vocalists - 1933 to 1963 - Songs of the Day Calendar...

The first companion thread which covers "Historic Popular Vocalists - 1910 - 1949" can be found here -

Historic Popular Vocalists - 1910 - 1949 - Songs of the Day Calendar...

- Duncan


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of March 3, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Amelita Galli-Curci*









*Amelita Galli-Curci Volume 1 1917-1924 - Part Six -*









*Donizetti: Linda di Chamounix: "O luce di quest' anima" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1922) -*






*Verdi: Rigoletto: "Tutte le feste al tempio" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Bishop, H R: "Pretty mocking bird" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Amelita Galli-Curci* (18 November 1882 - 26 November 1963) was an Italian coloratura soprano. She was one of the most popular operatic singers of the 20th century, with her recordings selling in large numbers.

Her American debut occurred in Chicago in November 1916, when she appeared in Rigoletto at the Auditorium Theatre to great acclaim. She remained with the Chicago Opera Association until 1921, making her New York City debut in the title role of Giacomo Meyerbeer's Dinorah in January 1918. In November 1920 she first appeared at the Metropolitan Opera of New York, in La traviata.

From 1921 to 1930 Galli-Curci sang regularly with the Met. Among her most acclaimed roles were those in Madama Butterfly, Der Rosenkavalier, Lakmé, Roméo et Juliette, Lucia di Lammermoor, and I puritani. She possessed a florid coloratura soprano of unsurpassed beauty, and she was a popular recording artist; her "Caro nome" from Rigoletto, recorded about 1919, is considered one of the greatest operatic recordings ever made. Her last performance at the Met was in Il barbiere di Siviglia in January 1930. Until her retirement in 1937, she maintained a heavy schedule of concert appearances.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of March 4, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Giacomo Lauri-Volpi*









*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi 1922-1942 - Part Six -*









*Gounod: Faust: "Salve, dimora casta e pura" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1930) -*






*Meyerbeer: L'Africaine: "O Paradiso" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1934) -*






*Giordano, U: Andrea Chénier: "Un dì all' azzurro spazio" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1934) -*






*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi* (11 December 1892 - 17 March 1979) was an Italian tenor with a lyric-dramatic voice of exceptional range and technical facility. He performed throughout Europe and the Americas in a top-class career that spanned 40 years.

Lauri-Volpi recorded a number of opera arias and duets for European and American gramophone companies during the height of his fame. His voice was a brilliant instrument at its zenith: bright, flexible and ringing in tone. He had astonishingly easy and penetrating high notes and possessed a shimmering vibrato which made his voice instantly recognisable both on disc and in the theatre.

He sang roles as diverse as Arturo (in Bellini's I Puritani) and Otello (in Verdi's Otello). In the process, he cemented his position as one of the supreme opera singers of the 20th century, even though he faced stiff competition from a remarkable crop of rival Mediterranean tenors during his prime in the 1925-1940 period. (They included Beniamino Gigli, Giovanni Martinelli, Aureliano Pertile, Francesco Merli, Galliano Masini, Tito Schipa, Antonio Cortis and Renato Zanelli-as well as the young Alessandro Ziliani and Giovanni Malipiero.)


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the Day of March 5, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Ernestine Schumann-Heink*









*Ernestine Schumann-Heink 1906-1929 - Part Six -*









*Thurlow Lieurance: "By the Waters of Minnetonka" -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1926) -*






*Wagner: Das Rheingold: "Weiche, Wotan" -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1929) -*






*Wagner: Götterdämmerung: "Höre mit Sinn, was ich dir sage!" -

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - (Recorded 1929) -*






*Ernestine Schumann-Heink* (15 June 1861 - 17 November 1936) was an Austrian-born German-American operatic contralto of German Bohemian descent. She was noted for the size, beauty, tonal richness, flexibility and wide range of her voice.

At one point in her career hailed as "the world's greatest contralto," Ernestine Rössler was born on June 15, 1861 in Lieben, near Prague (now in the Czech Republic, but then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire).

The singer's breakthrough into leading roles came in 1889, when prima donna Maria Götze argued with the director of the Hamburg Opera. He asked Ernestine to sing the title role in Carmen, without rehearsal, which she did, to great acclaim. In a fit of pique, Götze cancelled out of the role of Fidès in Meyerbeer's La Prophète, which was to be performed the following night and was again replaced by Ernestine. The following evening Ernestine again replaced Götze as Ortrud in Wagner's Lohengrin, again without rehearsal-and was offered a ten-year contract. From then on, Ernestine was famous, performing an average twenty times a month.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of March 6, 2020 -*









*The Sopranos - Part Seven -*








*(Pictured: Helen Traubel)*

*Gluck: Alceste - "Divinités du Styx"

Helen Traubel - (Recorded 1940) - *














*Verdi: I vespri siciliani: "Bolero" -

Rosa Raisa - (Recorded 1921) - *













*(Pictured: Elena Gerhardt)*

*Schumann: Dichterliebe, Op. 48: "Ich grolle nicht" -

Elena Gerhardt - (Recorded 1911) -*













*(Pictured: Maggie Teyte)*

*Hahn, R: "Etudes Latines"

Maggie Teyte - (Recorded 1944) - *


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of March 7, 2020

Featured Artist - Beniamino Gigli*









*Beniamino Gigli Volume 1 1918-1924 - Part Seven -*









*Buzzi-Peccia: "Povero Pulcinella" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1924) - *






*Denza: "Funiculì-Funiculà" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Beniamino Gigli* (20 March 1890 - 30 November 1957)[1] was an Italian opera singer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tenors of his generation.

Gigli rose to true international prominence after the death of the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso in 1921. Such was his popularity with audiences he was often called "Caruso Secondo", though he much preferred to be known as "Gigli Primo". In fact, the comparison was not valid as Caruso had a bigger, darker, more heroic voice than Gigli's sizable yet honey-toned lyric instrument.

Early in his career, Gigli possessed a beautiful, soft and honey-like lyric voice, with incredible mezza-voice, allowing him to sing light, lyrical roles. As he grew older, his voice developed some dramatic qualities, enabling him to sing heavier roles like Aida and Tosca. Some critics say that he was over-emotional during his performances, often resolving to sobbing and in some cases, exaggerations.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

This thread is on hiatus with a return date to be determined...

- Duncan


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of March 30, 2020

Featured Artist - Geraldine Farrar*









*Geraldine Farrar in Italian Opera - Part Three -*









*Puccini: La Bohème, Act 3 No. 16: "Mimì! Speravo di trovarvi" -

Geraldine Farrar with Antonio Scotti - (Recorded 1909) -*






*Puccini: La Bohème, Act 3 No. 18: "Donde lieta usci" -

Geraldine Farrar - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Puccini: La Bohème Act 3 No. 19: "Addio dolce svegliare" -

Gina Viafora, Antonio Scotti, Enrico Caruso, and Geraldine Farrar -

(Recorded 1908) -*






*Alice Geraldine Farrar* (February 28, 1882 - March 11, 1967) was an American soprano opera singer and film actress, noted for her beauty, acting ability, and "the intimate timbre of her voice."

After three years with the Monte Carlo Opera, she made her debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera in Romeo et Juliette on November 26, 1906. She appeared in the first Met performance of Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly in 1907 and remained a member of the company until her retirement in 1922, singing 29 roles there in 672 performances.

She developed a great popular following, especially among New York's young female opera-goers, who were known as "Gerry-flappers". Farrar created the title roles in Pietro Mascagni's Amica (Monte Carlo, 1905), Puccini's Suor Angelica (New York City, 1918), Umberto Giordano's Madame Sans-Gêne (New York, 1915), as well as the Goosegirl in Engelbert Humperdinck's Königskinder (New York, 1910), for which Farrar trained her own flock of geese. According to a review in the New York Tribune of the first performance, "at the close of the opera Miss Farrar caused 'much amusement' by appearing before the curtain with a live goose under her arm."


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Welcome back, Duncan!


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of March 31, 2020

Featured Artist - Jussi Björling*









*Jussi Björling - The First Ten Years - Part Two*









*Borodin: Prince Igor: "Vladimir's Cavatina" -

Jussi Björling - (Recorded 1933) -
*





*Verdi: Rigoletto - "Questa o quella" -

Jussi Björling - (Recorded 1930) -*






*Verdi: Rigoletto - "La donna è mobile" -

Jussi Björling - (Recorded 1933) -*






*Johan Jonatan "Jussi" Björling* (5 February 1911 - 9 September 1960) was a Swedish tenor. One of the leading operatic singers of the 20th century, Björling appeared for many years at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and less frequently at the major European opera houses, including the Royal Opera House in London and La Scala in Milan.

Björling made his first stage appearance in the small part as the Lamplighter in Manon Lescaut at the Royal Swedish Opera on July 21, 1930. This was soon followed by his official debut role as Don Ottavio in Mozart's Don Giovanni on August 20, 1930, with his teacher John Forsell as the protagonist. His other two official debut roles followed; Arnold in Rossini's William Tell on December 27, and Jonatan in Saul og David by Carl Nielsen on January 13, 1931. This led to a contract with the Royal Swedish Opera, where Björling added 53 parts up to 1938. Among the roles he was entrusted was Erik in The Flying Dutchman, Almaviva in The Barber of Seville, Duca in Rigoletto, Wilhelm Meister in Mignon, Faust, Vasco Da Gama in L'Africaine, Rodolfo in La bohème with Hjördis Schymberg, Tonio in La fille du régiment, Florestan in Fidelio and Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail. He was the first Swedish Dick Johnson in La fanciulla del West, Luigi in Il tabarro, Elemer in Arabella and Vladimir in Prince Igor, notably performing the part opposite Feodor Chaliapin in 1935.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 1, 2020

Featured Artist - Enrico Caruso*









*Enrico Caruso - The Complete Victor Recordings - Part Four*









*Donizetti: Don Pasquale: Act III: "Com'è gentil (Serenata)" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1905) - *






*Bizet: Carmen: Act II: "Il fior che avevi a me tu dato"

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1905) -*






*Meyerbeer: Gli Ugonotti (Les Huguenots): Act I: "Ah, qual soave vision ... Bianca al par di neve"

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1905) - *






*Enrico Caruso* (25 February 1873 - 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles (74) from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic.

One of the first major singing talents to be commercially recorded, Caruso made approximately 260 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920, which made him an international popular entertainment star.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 2, 2020 -

"Legendary Opera Duets" - Part Seven -*
















*(Pictured: Beniamino Gigli and Maria Zamboni)*

*Gounod: Faust: "Il se fait tard" -

Beniamino Gigli and Maria Zamboni - (Recorded 1919) -*













*(Pictured: Lawrence Tibbett)*








*(Pictured: Rose Bampton)*

*Verdi: Simon Boccanegra: "Figlia, a tal nome palpito" -

Lawrence Tibbett and Rose Bampton - (Recorded 1939) -*













*(Pictured: Ramon Vinay and Herva Nelli)*

*Verdi: Otello: "Già, nella notte densa" -

Ramon Vinay and Herva Nelli - (Recorded 1947) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 3, 2020

Featured Artist - Nellie Melba*









*Nellie Melba (Recorded 1905 - 1926) - Part One - *









*Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492: "Voi che sapete" -

Nellie Melba - (Recorded 1910) -*






*Handel: "L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato" -

HWV 55: "Sweet Bird that Shuns't the Noise of Folly"

Nellie Melba - (Recorded 1910) -*






*Charpentier, G: Louise - "Depuis le jour" -

Nellie Melba - (Recorded 1913) - *






*Dame Nellie Melba* GBE (born Helen Porter Mitchell; 19 May 1861 - 23 February 1931) was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early 20th century, and was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician. She took the pseudonym "Melba" from Melbourne, her home town.

Melba studied singing in Melbourne and made a modest success in performances there. After a brief and unsuccessful marriage, she moved to Europe in search of a singing career. Failing to find engagements in London in 1886, she studied in Paris and soon made a great success there and in Brussels. Returning to London she quickly established herself as the leading lyric soprano at Covent Garden from 1888. She soon achieved further success in Paris and elsewhere in Europe, and later at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, debuting there in 1893. Her repertoire was small; in her whole career she sang no more than 25 roles and was closely identified with only ten. She was known for her performances in French and Italian opera, but sang little German opera.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^Listening to the ease with which Melba soars through the high, sustained phrases of "Depuis le jour" makes all the more regrettable the inadequacy of recordings of the time in capturing the sound of sopranos. I think G. B. Shaw commented that "Melba's voice had splendor." We can hear the ease, consistency and clarity, but beyond that we'll just have to trust Shaw's judgment. I think I can do that.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> ^^^Listening to the ease with which Melba soars through the high, sustained phrases of "Depuis le jour" makes all the more regrettable the inadequacy of recordings of the time in capturing the sound of sopranos. I think G. B. Shaw commented that "Melba's voice had splendor." We can hear the ease, consistency and clarity, but beyond that we'll just have to trust Shaw's judgment. I think I can do that.


"Melba's first recordings were made around 1895, recorded on cylinders at the Bettini Phonograph Lab in New York. A reporter from Phonoscope magazine was impressed: "The next cylinder was labelled 'Melba' and was truly wonderful, the phonograph reproducing her wonderful voice in a marvellous manner, especially the high notes which soared away above the staff and were rich and clear." Melba was less impressed: "'Never again,' I said to myself as I listened to the scratching, screeching result. 'Don't tell me I sing like that, or I shall go away and live on a desert island.'" The recordings never reached the general public - destroyed on Melba's orders, it is suspected - and Melba would not venture into a recording studio for another eight years."

"Melba made numerous gramophone records of her voice in England and America between 1904 (when she was already in her 40's) and 1926 for the Gramophone & Typewriter Company and the Victor Talking Machine Company. Most of these recordings, consisting of operatic arias, duets and ensemble pieces and songs, have been re-released on CD.

The poor audio fidelity of the Melba recordings reflects the limitations of the early days of commercial sound recording. Melba's acoustical recordings (especially those made after her initial 1904 session) fail to capture vital overtones to the voice, leaving it without the body and warmth it possessed - albeit to a limited degree - in life. Despite this, they still reveal Melba to have had an almost seamlessly pure lyric soprano voice with effortless coloratura, a smooth legato and accurate intonation.

Melba had perfect pitch; the critic Michael Aspinall says of her complete London recordings issued on LP, that there are only two lapses from pitch in the entire set. Like Adalina Patti, and unlike the more vibrant-voiced Tetrazzini, Melba's exceptional purity of tone was probably one of the principal reasons why British audiences, with their strong choral and sacred music traditions, idolized her."

"As was the case in many of her performances, most of Melba's recordings were made at "French Pitch" (A=435 Hz), rather than the British early 20th century standard of A=452 Hz, or the modern standard of A=440 Hz. This, and the technical inadequacies of the early recording process (discs were frequently recorded faster or slower than the supposed standard of 78 rpm, whilst the conditions of the cramped recording studios - kept very warm to keep the wax at the necessary softness when cutting - would wreak havoc with instrumental tuning during recording sessions), means that playing her recordings back in the speed and pitch she made them at is not always a simple matter."

"Melba's name is associated with four foods, all of which were created in her honour by the French chef Auguste Escoffier:

Peach Melba, a dessert made of peaches, raspberry sauce, and vanilla ice cream
Melba sauce, a sweet purée of raspberries and red currant
Melba toast, a crisp dry toast
Melba Garniture, chicken, truffles and mushrooms stuffed into tomatoes with velouté sauce.

"Melba was not known as a Wagner singer, although she occasionally sang Elsa in Lohengrin and Elisabeth in Tannhäuser. She received a certain amount of praise in these roles, although Klein found her unsuited to them, and Bernard Shaw thought she sang with great skill but played artificially and without sensibility."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Duncan said:


> "Melba was not known as a Wagner singer, although she occasionally sang Elsa in Lohengrin and Elisabeth in Tannhäuser. She received a certain amount of praise in these roles, although Klein found her unsuited to them, and Bernard Shaw thought she sang with great skill but played artificially and without sensibility."


It's always worth recalling that Melba once ventured the _Siegfried _Brunnhilde (hard as that is to imagine) and temporarily lost her voice.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 4, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Alessandro Bonci*









*Alessandro Bonci - The Fonotipia recordings 1905-1907 - Part Seven -*









*Verdi: Aida: "Celeste Aida" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Verdi: Luisa Miller: "Ah fede negar…Quando le sere al placido" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Verdi: La Traviata: "De' miei bollenti spiriti" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Alessandro Bonci* (February 10, 1870 - August 9, 1940) was an Italian lyric tenor known internationally for his association with the bel canto repertoire.

Bonci made his debut in Parma in 1896, singing the role of Fenton in Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff at the Teatro Regio. Before the end of his first season he was engaged to sing at La Scala, Milan, where he debuted in Vincenzo Bellini's I Puritani. Appearances elsewhere in Europe followed, including at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He first sang at Covent Garden in 1900 and he would return there in 1903 and 1907-08.

On December 3, 1906, Bonci made his American debut with the Manhattan Opera Company in New York City; again the opera was I Puritani. He stayed two seasons with the company, becoming a popular competitor to Enrico Caruso, who was the rival Metropolitan Opera's major drawing-card. Bonci himself joined the Metropolitan Opera in 1908 and, in 1914, the Chicago Opera. He also made a transcontinental tour of America in 1910-11, giving song recitals.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 5, 2020

Featured Artist - Mafalda Favero*









*Mafalda Favero - Recorded 1929 - 1946 - Part One *









*Puccini: Turandot - "Signore, ascolta" -

Mafalda Favero - (Recorded 1937) -*






*Puccini: Turandot - "Tu che di gel" -

Mafalda Favero - (Recorded 1929) -
*





*Puccini: Manon Lescaut: "In quelle trine" -

Mafalda Favero - (Recorded 1937) -*






*Mafalda Favero* (January 5, 1905 - September 3rd, 1981) was an Italian operatic soprano.

Even in her twenties Favero responded with sharp intelligence to words and her voice had a bright purity, but at that stage her lower register was not quite integrated, and in dramatic music she tended to push the voice a little.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 6, 2020 -*









*Light Opera Gems - Part One *








*(Pictured: Gino Bechi)*

*Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia - " Largo al factotum"

Gino Bechi - (Recorded 1941) - *













*(Pictured: Ezio Pinza)*

*Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore: "Udite, udite o rustici" -

Ezio Pinza - (Recorded - 1940) -*














*Lehár: Eva - "Im heimlichen Dämmer" -

Maria Reining - (Recorded - 1942) - 
*












*(Pictured: Amelita Galli-Curci)*

*Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro - "Non so più cosa son, cosa faccio"

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded - 1917) - *


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 7, 2020

Featured Artist - César Vezzani*









*César Vezzani 1912-1925 - Part Six -*









*Leoncavallo: Pagliacci: "M'habiller" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1912) -*






*Puccini: Manon Lescaut: "Ah! Ne approchez pas" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Puccini: Tosca: "Le ciel luisant d'etoiles" -

César Vezzani - (Recorded 1912) -*






*César Vezzani* (8 August 1888 - 11 November 1951) was a French/Corsican operatic tenor who became a leading exponent of French grand opera through several decades.

Critics have shown universal recognition of the exceptional quality of Vezzani's voice, though they have sometimes expressed reservations about the subtlety of his approach, which was generally robust.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 8, 2020

Featured Artist - Maria Barrientos*









*Maria Barrientos - 1916 - 1920 - Part One*









*Bellini: La Sonnambula: "Ah! non giunge" -

Maria Barrientos - (Recorded 1920) -*






*Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor - "Regnava nel silencio" -

Maria Barrientos - (Recorded 1916) -*






*Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor - "Ardon gl'incensi"

Maria Barrientos - (Recorded 1916) -*






*María Alejandra Barrientos Llopis *(4 March 1884[1] - 8 August 1946) was a Spanish opera singer, a light coloratura soprano.

Barrientos made her Metropolitan Opera debut on January 31, 1916, in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor with Giovanni Martinelli as Edgardo, Pasquale Amato as Enrico, and Gaetano Bavagnoli conducting. She remained committed to that house through 1920 where her other roles included Adina in L'elisir d'amore, Amina in La sonnambula, Elvira in I puritani, Gilda in Rigoletto, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and the title roles in Lakmé and Mireille. She notably portrayed The Queen of Shemakha in Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel for the opera's United States premiere on March 6, 1918. Her Met career came to an end on May 1, 1920 with a tour performance of L'Elisir d'Amore opposite Enrico Caruso.

Barrientos continued appearing on stage in standard coloratura roles until 1924. She then restricted herself to recitals, and became an admired interpreter of French and Spanish songs.

Barrientos was a singer with a voice of almost instrumental limpidity. She made a valuable set of recordings for Fonotipia Records and Columbia Records.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 9, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Antonio Cortis*









*Antonio Cortis 1925-1930 - Part Seven -*









*Joaquin Gaztambide: Una Vieja: "Cavatina, Un español que vien" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1925) -*






*Serrano, J: L'Alegria del Batallon: "Canción del soldado" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1925) -*






*Antonio Cortis: "Calabazas (Jilted)" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1927) -*






*Antonio Cortis: "Tropezón (The Obstacle)" -

Antonio Cortis - (Recorded 1927) -*






*Antonio Cortis* (12 August 1891 - 2 April 1952) was a Spanish tenor with an outstanding voice. He was acclaimed by audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for his exciting performances of Italian operatic works, especially those by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and the verismo composers.

He made his stage debut in 1912 at the Liceo in Barcelona as a _comprimario_ singer, but he gradually worked his way up to major roles at a variety of opera houses in Spain and South America, including the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. On the South American tour of 1917, the young tenor was befriended by the Metropolitan Opera star Enrico Caruso, who encouraged him to pursue his singing career in New York City. Cortis declined Caruso's offer of help due to personal reasons but he would henceforth model his singing technique on Caruso's great example.

His international career began in earnest with successful appearances in Naples and, more importantly, at Rome's Teatro Costanzi in 1920, where he signed a three-year contract. He proceeded to sing in Stockholm, Milan, Latin America and Berlin and, most famously, with the esteemed company at the Chicago Civic Opera from 1924 to 1932. His debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, occurred in 1931, as Calaf in Puccini's Turandot. He appeared often on the Italian opera-house circuit during the early 1930's but success at Milan's La Scala, with its entrenched roster of popular Italian-born tenors, eluded him.

Cortis came to be regarded as one of the best inter-war interpreters of _verismo_ opera. He was particularly praised for his performances of Calaf and of Dick Johnson in Puccini's La fanciulla del West, while he sang with remarkable ease the strenuous music composed for the tenor voice by Umberto Giordano and Pietro Mascagni. Cortis also undertook Verdi roles, such as the Duke in Rigoletto, which he delivered with impressive skill and style.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 10, 2020-*









*
Age Of Bel Canto - Part Seven -*








*(Pictured: Enrico Caruso)*

*Rossini: Stabat Mater: "Cujus animam gementem"

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1913) -*













*(Pictured: Nicola Rossi-Lemeni)*

*Bellini: La sonnambula: "Vi ravviso" -

Nicola Rossi-Lemeni - (Recorded 1951 - 1953) -*













*(Pictured: Feodor Chaliapin) *

*Bellini: Norma: "Ite sul colle" -

Feodor Chaliapin - (Recorded 1912) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 11, 2020

Featured Artist - Enrico Caruso*









*Enrico Caruso - The Complete Victor Recordings - Part Five*









*Ponchielli: La Gioconda - "Cielo e mar!"

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1905) - 
*





*Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana: "Intanto amici ... Viva il vino"

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1905) - *






*Flotow: Martha - "M'apparì tutt'amor"

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1905) -*






*Enrico Caruso* (25 February 1873 - 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles (74) from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic. One of the first major singing talents to be commercially recorded, Caruso made approximately 260 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920, which made him an international popular entertainment star.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 12, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Amelita Galli-Curci*









*Amelita Galli-Curci - Volume 2 - 1917 - 1930 - Part One -*









*Delibes: Lakmé: "Où va la jeune Hindoue?" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1917) - *






*Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor: "Il dolce suono...Spargi d'amaro pianto" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1922) -*






*Verdi: Rigoletto: "Caro nome" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1917) -*






*Amelita Galli-Curci *(18 November 1882 - 26 November 1963) was an Italian coloratura soprano. She was one of the most popular operatic singers of the 20th century, with her recordings selling in large numbers.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 13, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Giacomo Lauri-Volpi*









*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi 1922-1942 - Part Seven -*









*Puccini: Madama Butterfly: "Addio, fiorito asil" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi and Luigi Borgonovo - (Recorded 1934) -*






*Puccini: Manon Lescaut: "Ah! Non v'avvicinate...No! pazzo son" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi and Luigi Borgonovo - (Recorded 1934) -*






*Puccini: La fanciulla del West: "Ch'ella mi creda libero" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1942) -*






*Puccini: Turandot: "Nessun dorma" -

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi - (Recorded 1942) -*






*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi* (11 December 1892 - 17 March 1979) was an Italian tenor with a lyric-dramatic voice of exceptional range and technical facility. He performed throughout Europe and the Americas in a top-class career that spanned 40 years.

Lauri-Volpi recorded a number of opera arias and duets for European and American gramophone companies during the height of his fame. His voice was a brilliant instrument at its zenith: bright, flexible and ringing in tone. He had astonishingly easy and penetrating high notes and possessed a shimmering vibrato which made his voice instantly recognizable both on disc and in the theatre.

He sang roles as diverse as Arturo (in Bellini's I Puritani) and Otello (in Verdi's Otello). In the process, he cemented his position as one of the supreme opera singers of the 20th century, even though he faced stiff competition from a remarkable crop of rival Mediterranean tenors during his prime in the 1925-1940 period. (They included Beniamino Gigli, Giovanni Martinelli, Aureliano Pertile, Francesco Merli, Galliano Masini, Tito Schipa, Antonio Cortis and Renato Zanelli-as well as the young Alessandro Ziliani and Giovanni Malipiero.)


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the Day of April 14, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Elisabeth Rethberg*









*Elisabeth Rethberg - 1924 - 1930 - Part One*









*Verdi: Aida - "Ritorna vincitor" -

Elisabeth Rethberg - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Verdi: Aida - "O patria mia" -

Elisabeth Rethberg - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Giordano, U: Andrea Chénier: "La mamma morta" -

Elisabeth Rethberg - (Recorded 1924) -*






The German soprano *Elisabeth Rethberg* (22 September 1894 - 6 June 1976) was an opera singer of international repute active from the period of the First World War through to the early 1940's.

Rethberg sang with the Dresden Opera until 1922. In that year, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Aida in Giuseppe Verdi's opera of that name. She moved to the USA and remained with the Metropolitan for 20 seasons, singing 30 roles on stage and in the recording studio, opposite tenor colleagues such as Beniamino Gigli, Giovanni Martinelli and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi.

Her four Met opening nights ("Die Walkure", "Marriage of Figaro", "Aida" (2x)) tie her with Licia Albanese as being the sopranos who had the most Met opening nights. She also was engaged by London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where she sang in 1925 and in 1934-1939. The Salzburg Festival in Austria heard her too, as did audiences in Milan and elsewhere in Europe. Rethberg returned often to Dresden where, in 1928, she created the title role in Richard Strauss's Die ägyptische Helena.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 15, 2020 -*









*The Sopranos - Part Eight -*








*(Pictured: Mado Robin)*

*Acqua: "Chanson provençale" -

Mado Robin - (Recorded 1942) -*













*(Pictured: Dorothy Maynor)*

*Mozart: Die Zauberflöte, K620 - (Excerpt) -

Dorothy Maynor - (Recorded 1939) -
*












*(Pictured: Géori Boué)*

*Hahn, R: "Les rossignols des lilas" -

Géori Boué - (Recorded 1942) -*













*(Pictured: Suzanne Danco)*

*Anon.: "Amor amaro" -

Suzanne Danco - (Recorded 1941) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the Day of April 16, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Ezio Pinza*









*Ezio Pinza - 1923 - 1930 - Part One*









*Verdi: Il Trovatore: "Di due figli…Abbietta zingara" -

Ezio Pinza - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor: "Dalla stanza ove Lucia" -

Ezio Pinza - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Halévy: La Juive - "Si la rigeur" -

Ezio Pinza - (Recorded 1923) -*






*Halévy: La Juive - "Vous qui du Dieu vivant" -

Ezio Pinza - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Ezio Pinza* (born Fortunato Pinza; May 18, 1892 - May 9, 1957) was an Italian opera singer. Pinza possessed a rich, smooth and sonorous voice, with a flexibility unusual for a bass. He spent 22 seasons at New York's Metropolitan Opera, appearing in more than 750 performances of 50 operas. At the San Francisco Opera, Pinza sang 26 roles during 20 seasons from 1927 to 1948. Pinza also sang to great acclaim at La Scala, Milan and at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London.

After retiring from the Met in 1948, Pinza enjoyed a fresh career on Broadway in musical theatre, most notably in South Pacific, in which he created the role of Emile de Becque. He also appeared in several Hollywood films.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 17, 2020

Featured Artist - Geraldine Farrar*









*Geraldine Farrar in Italian Opera - Part Four -*









*Puccini: Tosca - "Ora stammi a sentir" -

Geraldine Farrar - (Recorded 1911) -*






*Puccini: Tosca - "Vissi d'arte" -

Geraldine Farrar - (Recorded 1913) -*






*Puccini: Madama Butterfly, Act 1 Scene II: "Amore o grillo" -

Antonio Scotti, Enrico Caruso, and Geraldine Farrar - (Recorded 1910) -*






*Alice Geraldine Farrar* (February 28, 1882 - March 11, 1967) was an American soprano opera singer and film actress, noted for her beauty, acting ability, and "the intimate timbre of her voice.

After three years with the Monte Carlo Opera, she made her debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera in Romeo et Juliette on November 26, 1906. She appeared in the first Met performance of Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly in 1907 and remained a member of the company until her retirement in 1922, singing 29 roles there in 672 performances.

She developed a great popular following, especially among New York's young female opera-goers, who were known as "Gerry-flappers". Farrar created the title roles in Pietro Mascagni's Amica (Monte Carlo, 1905), Puccini's Suor Angelica (New York City, 1918), Umberto Giordano's Madame Sans-Gêne (New York, 1915), as well as the Goosegirl in Engelbert Humperdinck's Königskinder (New York, 1910), for which Farrar trained her own flock of geese. According to a review in the New York Tribune of the first performance, "at the close of the opera Miss Farrar caused 'much amusement' by appearing before the curtain with a live goose under her arm."

She recorded extensively for the Victor Talking Machine Company and was often featured prominently in that firm's advertisements. She was one of the first performers to make a radio broadcast in a 1907 publicity event singing over Lee De Forest's experimental AM radio transmitter in New York City.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 18, 2020

Featured Artist - Jussi Björling*









*Jussi Björling - The First Ten Years - Part Three*









*Leoncavallo: Pagliacci: "Vesti la giubba" -

Jussi Björling - (Recorded 1933) -*






*Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana: "O Lola" -

Jussi Björling - (Recorded 1934) -*






*Atterberg: Fanal: "I männer över lag och rätt" -

Jussi Björling - (Recorded 1935) -*






*Johan Jonatan "Jussi" Björling* (5 February 1911 - 9 September 1960) was a Swedish tenor. One of the leading operatic singers of the 20th century, Björling appeared for many years at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and less frequently at the major European opera houses, including the Royal Opera House in London and La Scala in Milan.

In December 1940 Arturo Toscanini invited Björling to sing the tenor part in Beethoven's Missa solemnis in New York, a recording of which exists. Björling also performed the Verdi Requiem under Toscanini in 1939 in Lucerne, Switzerland, and in November 1940 in New York, another performance which was recorded and eventually issued as an LP.

Björling made his debut at the Royal Opera House in London in 1939 as Manrico in Il trovatore. The war confined his appearances to Europe. He appeared in opera in Copenhagen, Helsinki and Budapest, and made his Italian debut at the Teatro Comunale, Florence, in 1943 in Il trovatore. In 1944, Björling was appointed hovsångare by Swedish king Gustaf V.

In 1945, Björling returned to the US again, and appeared frequently at the Metropolitan Opera. He sang many major tenor roles in operas in the French and Italian repertoire, including Il trovatore, Rigoletto, Aida, Un ballo in maschera, Cavalleria rusticana, Faust, Roméo et Juliette, La bohème, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, and Manon Lescaut. He appeared as Don Carlo in the opening of the 1950-1951 season, but the relationship with Rudolf Bing was strained, and as a consequence, he was absent for a couple of seasons in the mid 1950's. Meanwhile, Björling appeared with the other American opera companies like Lyric Opera of Chicago and San Francisco Opera.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 19, 2020 -*









*"Opera's Greatest Heroes" - Part One*








*(Pictured: Enrico Caruso)*

*Lully: Amadis: "Bois épais" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1920) -*













*(Pictured: Tito Schipa)*

*Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice - "Che faro' senza Euridice?"

Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1932) -*













*(Pictured: Franz Volker)*

*Mozart: Die Zauberflöte, K620 - (Excerpt) -

Franz Volker - (Recorded 1937) -*













*(Pictured: Alfred Piccaver)*

*Beethoven: Fidelio - "Gott! Welch Dunkel hier!"

Alfred Piccaver - (Recorded 1930) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 20, 2020

Featured Artist - Nellie Melba*









*Nellie Melba (Recorded 1905 - 1926) - Part Two -*









*Massenet: Don Cesar de Bazan: "A Séville, belles señoras" -

Dame Nellie Melba - (Recorded 1910) -
*





*Gounod: Faust: "Alerte! Où vous êtes perdus" -

Dame Nellie Melba, Giuseppe Sammarco, and John McCormack - (Recorded 1910) -*






*Thomas, Ambroise: Hamlet: "À vos jeux, mes amis...Pâle et blonde" -

Dame Nellie Melba - (Recorded 1907) -*






*Dame Nellie Melba* GBE (born Helen Porter Mitchell; 19 May 1861 - 23 February 1931) was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early 20th century, and was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician. She took the pseudonym "Melba" from Melbourne, her home town.

Melba made her Covent Garden début in May 1888, in the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor. She received a friendly but not excited reception. The Musical Times wrote, "Madame Melba is a fluent vocalist, and a quite respectable representative of light soprano parts; but she lacks the personal charm necessary to a great figure on the lyric stage." She was offended when Augustus Harris, then in charge at Covent Garden, offered her only the small role of the page Oscar in Un ballo in maschera for the next season. She left England vowing never to return. The following year, she performed at the Opéra in Paris, in the role of Ophélie in Hamlet; The Times described this as "a brilliant success", and said, "Madame Melba has a voice of great flexibility ... her acting is expressive and striking."

Melba had a strong supporter in London, Lady de Grey, whose views carried weight at Covent Garden. Melba was persuaded to return, and Harris cast her in Roméo et Juliette (June 1889) co-starring with Jean de Reszke. She later recalled, "I date my success in London quite distinctly from the great night of 15 June 1889." After this, she returned to Paris as Ophélie, Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, Gilda in Rigoletto, Marguerite in Faust, and Juliette. In French operas her pronunciation was poor, but the composer Delibes said that he did not care whether she sang in French, Italian, German, English or Chinese, as long as she sang.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 21, 2020

Featured Artist - Enrico Caruso*









*Enrico Caruso - The Complete Victor Recordings - Part Six*









*Puccini: La Bohème - "Che gelida manina" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Gounod: Faust: Act III: "Salut demeure chaste et pure" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Verdi: Il Trovatore: Act III: "Di quella pira" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1906) - *






*Enrico Caruso* (25 February 1873 - 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles (74) from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic. One of the first major singing talents to be commercially recorded, Caruso made approximately 260 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920, which made him an international popular entertainment star.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 22, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Alessandro Bonci*









*Alessandro Bonci - The Fonotipia recordings 1905-1907 - Part Eight -*









*Boito: Mefistofele: "Giunto sul passo estremo" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1905) -*






*Puccini: La Bohème - "Che gelida manina" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1905) - *






*Giordano, U: Fedora: "Amor ti vieta" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Giordano, U: Andrea Chénier: "Un di all'azzuro spazio" -

Alessandro Bonci - (Recorded 1907) -*






*Alessandro Bonci *(February 10, 1870 - August 9, 1940) was an Italian lyric tenor known internationally for his association with the bel canto repertoire.

Bonci made his debut in Parma in 1896, singing the role of Fenton in Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff at the Teatro Regio. Before the end of his first season he was engaged to sing at La Scala, Milan, where he debuted in Vincenzo Bellini's I Puritani. Appearances elsewhere in Europe followed, including at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He first sang at Covent Garden in 1900 and he would return there in 1903 and 1907-08.

On December 3, 1906, Bonci made his American debut with the Manhattan Opera Company in New York City; again the opera was I Puritani. He stayed two seasons with the company, becoming a popular competitor to Enrico Caruso, who was the rival Metropolitan Opera's major drawing-card. Bonci himself joined the Metropolitan Opera in 1908 and, in 1914, the Chicago Opera. He also made a transcontinental tour of America in 1910-11, giving song recitals.

Bonci was a demure man and his voice was not overly large. It was sweet-toned, stylish and supple, with excellent high notes and an easy high C. He sang with what at the time would have been considered a standard vibrato, though later generations (until our own) preferred a slower one.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 23, 2020

Featured Artist - Mafalda Favero*









*Mafalda Favero - Recorded 1929 - 1946 - Part Two*









*Mascagni: Lodoletta: "Flammen perdonami" -

Mafalda Favero - (Recorded 1941) -*






*Mascagni: L'Amico Fritz - "Son pochi fiori" -

Mafalda Favero - (Recorded 1937) -*






*Mascagni: L'Amico Fritz - "Suzel, bon di" -

Mafalda Favero and Tito Schipa - (Recorded 1937) -*






*Mascagni: L'Amico Fritz - "Non mi resta" -

Mafalda Favero - (Recorded 1929) -*






*Mafalda Favero* (January 5, 1905 - September 3rd, 1981) was an Italian operatic soprano.

She began her professional career in her early 20's in Cremona before moving to Parma where she sang several roles. She eventually transferred to La Scala where she debuted singing Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg under Arturo Toscanini in 1929.

She remained one of the regular singers at La Scala until 1950, in addition to singing in London (Royal Opera House) in 1937 and 1939, and in the United States (Metropolitan Opera and San Francisco Opera) in 1938. She had a large repertoire which included many contemporary works. She sang in the first performances of Alfano's L'ultimo Lord, Mascagni's Pinotta, Zandonai's Farsa amorosa, and Wolf-Ferrari's Il campiello, including his operatic adaptation of de Vega's play La dama Boba.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 24, 2020 -*









*Light Opera Gems - Part Two -*

*Flotow: Martha - ""Mag der Himmel euch vergeben" -*






*Flotow: Martha - ""Ach so fromm" -
*





*Flotow: Martha - "Letzte Rose (The Last Rose of Summer)" -
*





*Richard Tauber, Francis Lapitino, Rudolf Watzke, Emmi Leisner,

Amelita Galli-Curci, and Hedwig von Debicka*

*(Recorded 1928)*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 25, 2020

Featured Artist - Giovanni Martinelli*









*Martinelli in Opera Vol. 1 - Part One - *









* Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana- "O Lola, c'hai di latti la cammisa (Siciliana)"

Giovanni Martinelli - (Recorded 1915) -*






*Verdi: Ernani - "Merce, diletti amici... Come rugiada al cespite" -

Giovanni Martinelli - (Recorded 1915) -*






*Mascagni: Iris - "Apri la tua finestra" -

Giovanni Martinelli - (Recorded 1917) -*






*Giovanni Martinelli *(October 22, 1885 - February 2, 1969) was an Italian operatic tenor. He was associated with the Italian lyric-dramatic repertory, although he performed French operatic roles to great acclaim as well. Martinelli was one of the most famous tenors of the 20th century, enjoying a long career at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and appearing at other major international theatres.

Martinelli's debut at the Metropolitan Opera took place on November 20, 1913, as Rodolfo in La Bohème, where the young tenor's easy high C and pure, silvery tone attracted favourable attention; he was a Met mainstay for 32 seasons, with 926 performances of 36 roles, appearing most often as Radames in Aida; Otello; Manrico in Il trovatore; Don Alvaro in La forza del destino; Calaf in Turandot and Dick Johnson in La fanciulla del West; but also as Arnold in Guglielmo Tell; Eleazar in La Juive; Enzo in La Gioconda; Don Jose in Carmen; Vasco de Gama in L'Africaine; Canio in I pagliacci; Pollione in Norma. He also sang in Boston, San Francisco and Chicago, often trying out new roles there, before singing them at the Met.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 26, 2020

Featured Artist - Maria Barrientos*









*Maria Barrientos - 1916 - 1920 - Part Two*









*Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia: "Dunque io son" -

Maria Barrientos and Ricardo Stracciari - (Recorded 1919) -*






*Bellini: I Puritani: "Qui la voce ... Vien diletto" -

Maria Barrientos - (Recorded 1918) -*






*Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492: "Deh vieni, non tardar" -

Maria Barrientos - (Recorded 1916) -*






*María Alejandra Barrientos Llopis* (4 March 1884 - 8 August 1946) was a Spanish opera singer, a light coloratura soprano.

Barrientos made her Metropolitan Opera debut on January 31, 1916, in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor with Giovanni Martinelli as Edgardo, Pasquale Amato as Enrico, and Gaetano Bavagnoli conducting. She remained committed to that house through 1920 where her other roles included Adina in L'elisir d'amore, Amina in La sonnambula, Elvira in I puritani, Gilda in Rigoletto, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and the title roles in Lakmé and Mireille. She notably portrayed The Queen of Shemakha in Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel for the opera's United States premiere on March 6, 1918. Her Met career came to an end on May 1, 1920 with a tour performance of L'Elisir d'Amore opposite Enrico Caruso.

Barrientos continued appearing on stage in standard coloratura roles until 1924. She then restricted herself to recitals, and became an admired interpreter of French and Spanish songs.

Barrientos was a singer with a voice of almost instrumental limpidity. She made a valuable set of recordings for Fonotipia Records and Columbia Records.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 27, 2020

Featured Artist - Helge Rosvaenge*









*Helge Roswaenge - 1933 - 1942 - Part One*









*Beethoven: Fidelio, Op. 72: "Gott welch' Dunkel hier..In des Lebens Frühlingstagen" -

Helge Roswaenge - (Recorded 1938) -*






*Weber: Oberon, J. 306: "Seit frühster Jugend in Kampf und Streit" -

Helge Roswaenge - (Recorded 1936) -*






*Adam: Le postillion de Longjumeau: "Mes amis écoutez" -

Helge Roswaenge - (Recorded 1936) -*






*Helge Rosvaenge* (born Helge Anton Rosenvinge Hansen, August 29, 1897 - June 17, 1972) was a Danish operatic tenor whose career was centred on Germany and Austria, before, during and after World War II.

Roswaenge was one of the most popular and beloved tenors of this century. He was largely self-taught, taking only a few lessons with a local singing teacher which he combined with listening to records of his great idol, Enrico Caruso. He was known as 'The Knight of the High D'.

He made his debut at Neustrelitz as Don Jose in Carmen in 1921. Engagements followed at Altenburg, Basel, Cologne (1927-30) and the Berlin State Opera, where he was leading tenor from 1930 to 1944, being especially distinguished in the Italian repertory. He also sang regularly at the Vienna State Opera from 1936, and in Munich. Rosvaenge also appeared at the Salzburg Festival, making his debut there in Der Rosenkavalier. Other roles which he performed at Salzburg between 1933 and 1939 were Tamino in The Magic Flute, Huon in Oberon and Florestan in Fidelio. His London debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, occurred in 1938, as Florestan.

He sang Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival in 1934 and 1936, but otherwise avoided the Wagnerian repertory except on recordings.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 28, 2020-*









*Age Of Bel Canto - Part Seven -*








*(Pictured: Enrico Caruso)*

*Rossini: Stabat Mater: "Cujus animam gementem" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1913) -*













*(Pictured: Nicola Rossi-Lemeni)*

*Bellini: La sonnambula: "Vi ravviso" -

Nicola Rossi-Lemeni - (Recorded 1951 - 1953) -*













*(Pictured: Feodor Chaliapin with unidentified dog)*

*Bellini: Norma: "Ite sul colle" -

Feodor Chaliapin - (Recorded 1912) -*


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 29, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Amelita Galli-Curci*









*Amelita Galli-Curci - Volume 2 - 1917 - 1930 - Part Two -*









*David, Félicien: La perle du Bresil: "Charmant oiseaux" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1917) -*






*Bizet: Les pêcheurs de perles: "Comme autrefois" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1921) -*






*Proch: "Air and Variations in B-Flat Major" -

Amelita Galli-Curci - (Recorded 1917) -*






*Amelita Galli-Curci* (18 November 1882 - 26 November 1963) was an Italian coloratura soprano. She was one of the most popular operatic singers of the 20th century, with her recordings selling in large numbers.

Galli-Curci made her operatic debut in 1906 at Trani, as Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, and she rapidly became acclaimed throughout Italy for the sweetness and agility of her voice and her captivating musical interpretations. She was seen by many critics as an antidote to the host of squally, verismo-oriented sopranos then populating Italian opera houses.

The soprano had toured widely in Europe, Russia and South America. In 1915, she sang two performances of Lucia di Lammermoor with Enrico Caruso in Buenos Aires. These were to be her only operatic appearances with the great tenor, though they later appeared in concert and made a few recordings together.

Galli-Curci first arrived in the United States in the autumn of 1916 as a virtual unknown. Her stay in the US was intended to be brief, but the acclaim she received for her historic American debut as Gilda in Rigoletto in Chicago, Illinois on 18 November 1916 (her 34th birthday) was so wildly enthusiastic that she accepted an offer to extend her association with the Chicago Opera Association, where she appeared until the end of the 1924 season. Also in 1916, Galli-Curci signed a recording contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company and recorded exclusively for the company until 1930.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of April 30, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Beniamino Gigli*









*Beniamino Gigli - Volume 2 - 1925 - 1940 - Part One -*









*Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore - "Quanto è bella, quanto è cara" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1925) -*






*Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore - "Una furtiva lagrima" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1933) -*






*Puccini: Manon Lescaut: "Donna non vidi mai" -

Beniamino Gigli - (Recorded 1926) -*






*Beniamino Gigli* (20 March 1890 - 30 November 1957) was an Italian opera singer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tenors of his generation.

In 1914, he won first prize in an international singing competition in Parma. His operatic debut came on 15 October 1914, when he played Enzo in Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda in Rovigo, following which he was in great demand.

Gigli made many important debuts in quick succession, and always in Mefistofele: Teatro Massimo in Palermo (31 March 1915), Teatro di San Carlo in Naples (26 December 1915), Teatro Costanzi di Roma (26 December 1916), La Scala, Milan (19 November 1918) and finally the Metropolitan Opera, New York City (26 November 1920). Two other great Italian tenors present on the roster of Met singers during the 1920's also happened to be Gigli's chief contemporary rivals for tenor supremacy in the Italian repertory-namely, Giovanni Martinelli and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi.

Early in his career, Gigli possessed a beautiful, soft and honey-like lyric voice, with incredible mezza-voice, allowing him to sing light, lyrical roles. As he grew older, his voice developed some dramatic qualities, enabling him to sing heavier roles like Aida and Tosca. Some critics say that he was over-emotional during his performances, often resolving to sobbing and in some cases, exaggerations.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the day of May 1, 2020

Featured Artist - Enrico Caruso*









*Enrico Caruso - The Complete Victor Recordings - Part Seven -*









*Donizetti: La Favorita: Act IV: "Spirto gentil, ne' sogni miei (Romanza)" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Verdi: La forza del destino: Act III: "Solenne in quest'ora" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1906) - *






*Verdi: Aida :Act I - "Celeste Aida" -

Enrico Caruso - (Recorded 1906) -*






*Enrico Caruso* (25 February 1873 - 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles (74) from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic. One of the first major singing talents to be commercially recorded, Caruso made approximately 260 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920, which made him an international popular entertainment star.

Caruso's 25-year career, stretching from 1895 to 1920, included 863 appearances at the New York Metropolitan Opera before he died at the age of 48. Thanks in part to his tremendously popular phonograph records, Caruso was one of the most famous personalities of his day and his fame has endured to the present. He was one of the first examples of a global media celebrity. Beyond records, Caruso's name became familiar to millions through newspapers, books, magazines, and the new media technology of the 20th century: cinema, the telephone and telegraph.

Caruso's voice extended up to high D-flat in its prime and grew in power and weight as he grew older. At times, his voice took on a dark, almost baritonal coloration. He sang a broad spectrum of roles, ranging from lyric, to spinto, to dramatic parts, in the Italian and French repertoires.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Historic Opera Singers - Arias, Duets, and Ensembles

for the Day of May 2, 2020 -

Featured Artist - Elisabeth Rethberg*









*Elisabeth Rethberg - 1924 - 1930 - Part Two*









*Puccini: La Bohème: "Mi chiamano Mimì" -

Elisabeth Rethberg - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Puccini: Madama Butterfly: "Un bel dì vedremo" -

Elisabeth Rethberg - (Recorded 1924) -*






*Puccini: Tosca: "Vissi d'arte" -

Elisabeth Rethberg - (Recorded 1924) -*






The German soprano *Elisabeth Rethberg* (22 September 1894 - 6 June 1976) was an opera singer of international repute active from the period of the First World War through to the early 1940's.

Rethberg sang with the Dresden Opera until 1922. In that year, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Aida in Giuseppe Verdi's opera of that name. She moved to the USA and remained with the Metropolitan for 20 seasons, singing 30 roles on stage and in the recording studio, opposite tenor colleagues such as Beniamino Gigli, Giovanni Martinelli and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi.

Her four Met opening nights ("Die Walkure", "Marriage of Figaro", "Aida" (2x)) tie her with Licia Albanese as being the sopranos who had the most Met opening nights. She also was engaged by London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where she sang in 1925 and in 1934-1939. The Salzburg Festival in Austria heard her too, as did audiences in Milan and elsewhere in Europe. Rethberg returned often to Dresden where, in 1928, she created the title role in Richard Strauss's Die ägyptische Helena.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

I was going to post this in the thread "Pieces That Blew You Away" but couldn't find that thread. Then I found this one, where it will be appropriate. It's the performance that blows me away.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Open Book said:


> I was going to post this in the thread "Pieces That Blew You Away" but couldn't find that thread. Then I found this one, where it will be appropriate. It's the performance that blows me away.


Pieces that have blown you away recently?


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