Dame Isoleen Heather Begg DNZM OBE (1 December 1932 – 12 May 2009) Operatic mezzo-soprano
Dame Heather Begg spent most of her career in the United Kingdom and Australia. She was renowned in roles such as the title role in Bizet's Carmen, Amneris in Verdi's Aida and in lighter operas such as The Mikado (watch: The Mikado - Act 1 Finale.flv, uploaded by DancairoOpera. Accessed Dec. 1, 2018.) and The Gondoliers. She appeared alongside Dame Joan Sutherland, Luciano Pavarotti, Beverly Sills, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Plácido Domingo, Montserrat Caballé, Dame Janet Baker, José Carreras, and many other prominent singers. Her recording with Glenys Fowles of the "Flower Duet" from Delibes's Lakmé has become famous.
Heather Begg was born on December 1, 1932 in Nelson, New Zealand. She married Johnnie King, a Canadian, in 1964. He died in 1979. They had no children. On 12 May 2009, Begg died of leukemia, aged 76, in Canterbury Hospital, Campsie, Sydney, where she had made her home for many years.
Begg studied in Auckland with Sister Mary Leo and at the New South Wales State Conservatorium, during which time she won the 1955 Sydney
Sun Aria contest. She was engaged as a principal mezzo-soprano with the
National Opera of Australia from 1954-56. Her professional debut was as
Azucena in Verdi's Il trovatore.
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.)
Maria Callas, (born Cecilia Sophia Anna Kalogeropoulou). She was a New York-born Greek soprano, one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Her musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed as La Divina. Many critics praised her bel canto technique, wide-ranging voice and dramatic interpretations. Her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini, and to the works of Verdi and Puccini, and early in her career, to the music dramas of Wagner.
Timeline:
Dec 2, 1923. Maria Callas is born in New York, U.S.A.
Sept 28, 1937. She moves back to Greece with her mother, and begins training with Madam Elvira Heldago, National Conservatory.
Sept 28, 1940. Her auditions haven't been going as well until she is asked to audition for the General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera. He offers her the leading roles in two productions of the 1946/1947 season. Maria turns down the contract.
November 1, 1940. She makes her professional stage debut in Boccaccio. (age 17)
1941. Makes her debut as Tosca, in Athens.
1947. Earns wide acclaim singing Gioconda at the Verona Arena.
January 19, 1949. I Puritani is performed in Venice shortly
after, starring the Italian soprano Margherita Carosio as Elvira. One
night, Maria begins sight-reading Elvira's music as Carosio falls ill.
Conductor Serafin's wife hears Maria. She is offered the role of Elvira.
April 21, 1949. She marries Giovanni Battista Meneghini, a man almost 30 years her senior.
December 7, 1950. La Scala, the famous Milan theatre offers her a leading role. She opens the 1950/1951 season with I Vespri Siciliani, a success with good reviews.
July 1, 1952. She signs an exclusive recording contract with Walter Legge, EMI director.
1952 & 1956. Her early repertory includes Wagner but soon became identified with bel canto roles, singing Norma at her London (1952) and New York (1956).
December 19, 1958. Maria Callas performs an aria from her signature role, Bellini's druid priestess Norma, with the Orchestre de l'Opera National de Paris and Georges Sebastian. Recorded live at the Palais Garnier on the 19th of December 1958, this concert marked the soprano's debut at the Paris Opera, a major social event for Parisians and for which Callas donned her most elegant couture and a million dollars' worth of jewelry. (Maria Callas sings "Casta Diva" (Bellini: Norma, Act 1). Youtube, uploaded by Warner Classics. Accessed December 19, 2015.)
Maria Callas interpreting Bellini's Norma, "Casta Diva". Act I.
Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala, Milan
Tullio Serafin, Conductor.
Recorded in the Cinema Metropol, Milan, 1954. (Uploaded by Dennis Tschirner. Accessed December 2, 2015.)
January 1, 1942. Nazi Germany invades Greece in April 1941, under
Italian occupation. This day she is asked to perform in Puccini's Tosca at the Athens Opera.
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 (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.
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.
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.
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.
Wolfgang A. Mozart conducted his opera 'The Magic Flute' in its first performance on September 30, 1791, in Vienna. His librettist, Schikaneder, was also the first Papageno.
Die Zauberflöte, K. 620 (The Magic Flute / Die Zauberfloete), is an opera in two acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German Libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. This opera is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form which included both singing and spoken dialogue. It premiered in Vienna on 30 September 1791 at Schikaneder's theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden.
The first performance was at an out-of-town but not obscure theatre. Schikaneder himself played Papageno, while the Queen was played by Mozart's sister-in-law Josepha Hofer. The opera was not an immediate success, but slowly, it gained popularity. By November 1792, Schikaneder announced the opera's 100th performance. Unfortunately, Mozart did not have the pleasure of attending his masterpiece as he died December 5, 1791.
On January 11, 1904, The Magic Flute (German: Die Zauberflöte) is first performed at the Metropolitan Opera, New York.
Today, Die Zauberflöte remains one of the most performed works of Mozart worldwide.
Below is a performance by The Royal Opera, with German soprano opera singer Diana Damrau superb as the queen singing 'Der Hölle Rache', the famous Queen of the Night aria. Interested with the lyrics to the 'Queen of the Night' aria? Here. (classicfm.com. 2 June 2018.)
Recommended Magic Flute Overture:
Magic Flute overture- Mozart - Muti - Wiener philharmoniker. YouTube, uploaded by vexillum1. Accessed October 8, 2018.
Simon Keenlyside as Papageno in Mozart "Die Zauberflöte" singing: "Papagena! Papagena! Papagena!". YouTube, uploaded by Priezza. Accessed 30 September 2014.
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!"
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.
