THE
ARTS
4260 Callas, Victoria Los Angeles et al
As I have said elsewhere, apart from ‘Lucia di Lammermor’, by Donizetti, which we saw – on our honeymoon – at the Paris Opera, and didn’t really appreciate, we only went to Wagner’s ‘Ring’ in the 1960s.
Thus, we only ever saw Callas sing, and even then only in concert, in the 1960’s – singing arias from Semiramide (Rossini), Norma (Bellini), La Boheme and Madama Butterfly (Puccini) - when she was coming to the end of her career, and was really more suited to mezzo roles. It cost us a fortune, the equivalent of several hundred pounds these days, but it was worth it since she had real star quality.
Even so, Victoria de Los Angeles was our favourite in the 1960s. She had a beautiful, pure but warm, voice and we went to see her regularly in concert. I best remember her singing Cantaloupe’s setting of ‘Songs of the Auvergne’.
Another very good Spanish singer was Tereza Berganza, and we saw her sing Falla’s ‘Seven Popular Songs’. The Spanish composers were popular at that time and we also saw concert performances of Falla’s ‘Three Cornered Hat’ and ‘Nights in the Gardens of Spain’.
The top ‘lieder’ singers at the time were Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, in my view the best at that time, who we heard – unusually – sing a programme of Kodaly songs with the LSO. The other was Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, who we saw in a filmed version of Richard Strauss’ ‘Der Rosenkavalier’ and who had the purest voice of all.
Another beautiful voice, who specialized in Mozart (we heard her sing his ‘Exsultate Jubilate’) was Mattwilda Dobbs.
In Milton Keynes we don't get the top-line singers, but some of the touring performers are still very good.
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