Nicole Car Stars in Verdi's Opera Luisa Miller

Classical Music / Opera:  February 2016

Australian Soprano Nicole Car is Luisa Miller in Verdi's opera of the same name.

Soprano Nicole Car is one of the most outstanding young singers to emerge from Australia in recent years. She is currently starring in the title role of Verdi's "Luisa Miller" - an opera of love, intrigue, and poison.  

"Luisa Miller" is still on:  February 24 (Wednesday),  27 (Saturday), and 29 (Monday), 7.30pm for all performances at the Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House.
(For Sydneysiders interested, get your tickets while there are few seats left.) 

Anton Raaff

Mozart Contemporaries / Anton Raaff

 

Anton Raaff, Tenor and Friend of Mozart

 

Anton Raaff (also spelt Raaf), German operatic singer (tenor) and a friend of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, is baptized  in Gelsdorf, near Bonn on May 6, 1714. He was a pupil of Bernacchi in Bologna and became a principal operatic tenor in Naples and Florence in the 1760's when the wunderkind Mozart was about 5 years old.

In later years, Anton Raaff served at the courts of Mannheim and Munich. He sang in the first performance of Mozart's opera Idomeneo, 1781, in Munich.

Dame Joan Sutherland

Classical Music / Opera Datebook: November 7

Dame Joan Sutherland (November 7, 1926 - October 10, 2010), was an Australian opera singer, a coloratura soprano, noted for her contribution to the bel canto revival of the 1950s and 1960s.

She made her debut as Dido in Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas in 1947. She went to London in 1951, and joined the Royal Opera in Covent Garden. She gained international acclaim with her roles in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (The Bride of Lammermoor) and Handel's Samson. She was the wife of conductor Richard Bonynge, said to have the greatest impact on her life and career.

Opera Singer Jenny Lind

The "Swedish Nightingale"

Famously known as Jenny Lind, Johanna Maria Lind, born 6th of October 1820 and died 2nd of November 1887. She was a Swedish opera singer, often referred as the "Swedish Nightingale."

Lind was one of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century. She performed in opera roles in Sweden and across Europe, and undertook an extraordinarily popular beginning in 1850. She was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music from 1840.

Lind became famous after her operatic debut performance on March 7, 1838, at the Stockholm Opera, Sweden, of Der Freischütz by composer Carl Maria von Weber. She suffered vocal damage within a few years, but the singing teacher Manuel García saved her voice.

Maria Malibran, Mezzo-Soprano

At the age of 17, on June 7, 1825, mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran makes her debut in London. She studied with her father Manuel Garcia, whose harsh treatment prompted her to marry in order to escape. Her voice has been described with its range, power and flexibility as extraordinary. Malibran is closely associated with the operas of  Rossini. 

Brief Profile

Maria Malibran (March 24, 1808 – September 23, 1836), the older sister of Pauline Viardot, another well-known singer, was one of the most famous opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality and dramatic intensity, becoming a legendary figure after her death at age 28.

Beniamino Gigli sings Mozart Dalla sua pace

Mozart Interpreters / Tenor Benjamino Gigli

Gigli sings "Dalla sua pace" from Mozart Opera Don Giovanni

Beniamino Gigli  (March 20, 1890 - November 30, 1957), was a prominent Italian opera singer in his time, a famous tenor. Considered to be one of the finest tenors in recorded history of music, he was best known for the great beauty of his voice and the soundness of his vocal technique.  He rose to international prominence after the death of the famous Italian tenor Enrico Caruso in 1921.  Although he was often compared to Caruso, they were in fact different in a sense that he was known for his honey-toned lyricism while Caruso had a bigger more "heroic" voice.




Video Credit:
Beniamino Gigli sings from Mozart Opera DonGiovanni, "Dalla sua pace" London 1939. Youtube, uploaded by operbathosa. Accessed February 1, 2013

References:

All Music.  Accessed February 1, 2013.

"Beniamino Gigli". History of the Tenor.  Accessed February 1, 2013.

Music Web.  Accessed February 1, 2013.

Nellie Melba née Mitchell

Classical Music / Opera Singer Datebook: May 19

Australian soprano, Dame Nellie Melba née Mitchell

Nellie Melba, DBE (19 May 1861 – 23 February 1931), born Helen Porter Mitchell, was an Australian opera soprano, the first Australian to achieve international recognition in the form, and a legend in her time.

She was born at "Doonside" in Richmond, suburb of Melbourne, into a musical family. She attended Presbyterian Ladies' College (a prestigious private school) where her musical talent emerged. Eventually, she became one of the most famous opera singers of the late Victorian Era until the early 20th century, the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical singer.

After a brief and unsuccessful marriage in Australia, she moved to Europe in search of a singing career. Failing to find engagements in London (1886), she studied in Paris. Soon she was successful there and in Brussels. She immediately returned to London where she established herself as the leading lyric soprano at the famous Covent Garden from 1888.

Here's a video of Dame Nellie Melba History Documentary. YouTube, uploaded by Stephanie history. Accessed 19 May, 2014.

Pauline Viardot and Don Giovanni

Trivia:  Did you know?

Don Giovanni's invitation to the statue of the Commendatore. Image: Wikipedia Commons.

 

Pauline Viardot-Garcia, a mezzo-soprano and composer,  possessed the holograph of the famous opera Don Giovanni  of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. She left it to the Paris Conservatory Library.

Pauline Viardot [née García] (July 18, 1821 – May 18, 1910) was a 19th century French mezzo-soprano and composer of Spanish descent. She achieved initial fame as "Pauline García". She referred to herself simply as "Mme. Viardot" after her marriage.

She spoke fluent Spanish, French, Italian, English, German,and Russian, and composed variety of songs. Her career took her to the best music halls across Europe. In 1840s she was permanently attached to the Opera in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Viardot was renowned for her wide vocal range and her dramatic roles on stage. Her performances were noted to have inspired composers such as Frédéric Chopin, Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns (who dedicated Samson and Delilah to her, and wanted her to sing the title role, but she declined on account of her age).  She also arranged instrumental woks of Joseph Haydn, Schubert and Brahms as songs.  She was a friend of Clara Schumann.

She spent many happy hours at George Sand's home at Nohant, with Sand and her lover Frédéric Chopin. The warmth of feeling that existed between Viardot and Chopin was based on reciprocal esteem and affinity of temperament. The friendship was also one of mutual artistic benefit. She was given expert advice by Chopin on her piano playing, her vocal compositions, and her arrangements of some of his mazurkas as songs. He in turn derived from her some firsthand knowledge about Spanish music. When Sand's and Chopin's relationship came to an end in July 1847, Viardot tried to get the two back together, but failed.

Pauline Viardot died in 1910, at the age of eighty-eight. Her body is interred in the Paris, Montmarte Centemery.

Photo Credit:

Don Giovanni's invitation to the statue of the Commendatore. en.wikipedia.org / Public Domain. Accessed December 11, 2013.

Resources:

• Eric Blum, Editor.  Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th edition, 1954.

• "Pauline Viardot Garcia".  Hildegard.com/Notes.  Accessed December 11, 2013.

• The Music Salon of Pauline Viardot by Rachel M. Harris.  Accessed December 11, 2013.

 

(c) November 2009. Updated December 11, 2013. Tel Asiado. Inspired Pen Web. All right reserved. 

Opera Singer Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Debut in Der Rosenkavalier

Classical Music Dateline: Sept 20.

Sept 20, 1955.  German opera singer Elisabeth Schwarzkopf makes her American debut in San Francisco, starring in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier.  

Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf DBE (December 9, 1915 – August 3, 2006), was a German opera singer (who later took British citizenship). She was one of the leading soprano of the post-World War II period, much admired for her performances of Mozart, Strauss and Hugo Wolf. .

She was born in Jarotschin in Prussia (now part of Poland) to Friedrich Schwarzkopf and his wife, Elisabeth Fröhling. Christened Olga Maria Elisabeth Frederike Schwarzkopf, Schwarzkopf showed an interest in music from an early age.

In 1928, she performed in her first opera as Eurydice in a school production of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice in Magdeburg, Germany. In 1934, Schwarzkopf began her musical studies at the Berlin Hockschule für Musik. At the suggestion of the baritone Karl Schmitt-Walter, she switched teachers and started working with the celebrated coloratura soprano Maria Ivogün as well as with her husband, the noted pianist Michael Raucheisan. Ivogün's advice to her new pupil was, "Be noble, my child!"


Resources:

Elisabeth Schwarskopf (Soprano).  Bach Cantatas Website.  Accessed September 20, 2008.

Kennedy, Michael & Joyce & Tim Rutherford-Johnson, Eds. (2012). Oxford Dictionary of Music. Oxford University Press.

Storace Siblings and 18th-century English Theatre

Mozart Contemporaries / The Storace Siblings

 

THE ROLE OF THE STORACE SIBLINGS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH THEATRE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

© By Agnes Selby, Guest Writer-Friend

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, English theatre audiences did not possess the sophistication of their European counterparts . On any given night it was not unusual for warring factions to invade the stage and do battle there, damaging the scenery as well as their opponents in the process, while a favourite Italian castrato continued to belt out his aria.The late eighteenth century forefathers of today's English soccer hooligans found English theatres a perfect venue, not only for their battles but also for warmth during the winter months.