Elisabeth Schumann was an extremely famous German-American soprano who came to this country to be a faculty member at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia just before the outbreak...
Read MoreBidu Sayao was a Brazilian soprano whose gossamer voice and vivacious personality made her one of the most popular stars of the Metropolitan Opera from the late 1930's through the...
Read MoreIn this prologue to Boris Godunov, I have selected Lev Sibiryakov to sing the monk Pimen. It is an extraordinary performance, especially when you take into account the it was...
Read MoreI'm not going to try to put all the lyrics in because there are so many excerpts, and I go half crazy with the formatting of the translations. Rysanek was...
Read MoreDer Rosenkavalier – the Presentation of the Rose, Tiana Lemnitz (Octavian), Maria Cerbotari (Sophie)
This is the Presentation of the Rose from the 2nd Act of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. It is a wonderful recording with two singers in their prime. I did a fairly...
Read MoreThis is an extremely difficult blog post for me to write. Lemnitz was an outstanding singer and had a long career. She was also an active member of the Nazi...
Read MoreKirsten Flagstad (1895-1962) was one of the preeminent Wagnerian Sopranos in the 20th century, yet she really didn't sing heavy, Wagnerian roles until she was in her 40s. In pre-war...
Read MoreMarcel Wittrisch started out as a tenor and then moved to a heldentenor. He had a large voice, and he sang beautifully in the resonance nearly all the time. It...
Read MoreTeresa Stich-Randall was an American soprano who spent most of her career in Europe, especially in Vienna. She became a Kammersängerin, which is an Austrian title of honor for singers....
Read MoreHilde Zadek (primarily taken from the New York Times, 2/24/19) Hilde Zadek was a Jew who had fled her own country for Palestine because of the Nazi occupation. While in...
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