Charles-François Gounod (17 June 1818 – 17 October or 18 October

In 1854, Gounod completed a Messe Solennelle, also known as the Saint Cecilia Mass. This work was first performed, in its entirety, for the church of Saint Eustache in Paris on Saint Cecilia's Day, November 22, 1855; from this rendition dates Gounod's fame as a noteworthy composer.

During 1855 Gounod wrote two symphonies. His Symphony No. 1 in D major was the inspiration for the Symphony in C, composed later that year by Georges Bizet, who was then Gounod's 17-year-old student. In the CD era a few recordings of these pieces have emerged: by Michel Plasson conducting the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse, and by Sir Neville Marriner with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

Fanny Mendelssohn, sister of Felix Mendelssohn, introduced the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach to Gounod, who came to revere Bach. For him, The Well-Tempered Clavier was "the law to pianoforte study...the unquestioned textbook of musical composition". It inspired Gounod to devise an improvisation of a melody over the C major Prelude (BWV 846) from the collection's first book. To this melody, in 1859 (after the deaths of both Mendelssohn siblings), Gounod fitted the words of the Ave Maria, resulting in a setting that became world-famous.

Gounod wrote his first opera, Sapho, in 1851, at the urging of a friend of his, the singer Pauline Viardot; it was a commercial failure. He had no great theatrical success until Faust (1859), derived from Goethe. This remains the composition for which he is best known; and although it took a while to achieve popularity, it became one of the most frequently staged operas of all time, with no fewer than 2,000 performances of the work having taken place by 1975 at the Paris Opéra alone, not counting other theatres. The romantic and melodious Roméo et Juliette (based on the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet), premiered in 1867, is revived now and then but has never come close to matching Fausts popular following. Mireille, first performed in 1864, has been admired by connoisseurs rather than by the general public. The other Gounod operas have fallen into oblivion.

, 1882]] From 1870 to 1874 Gounod lived in England, becoming the first conductor of what is now the Royal Choral Society. Much of his music from this time is vocal. He became entangled with the amateur English singer Georgina Weldon, a relationship (platonic, it seems) which ended in great acrimony and embittered litigation. Gounod had lodged with Weldon and her husband in London's Tavistock House.

Later in his life, Gounod returned to his early religious impulses, writing much sacred music. His Pontifical Anthem (Marche Pontificale, 1869) eventually (1949) became the official national anthem of Vatican City. He expressed a desire to compose his Messe à la mémoire de Jeanne d'Arc (1887) while kneeling on the stone on which Joan of Arc knelt at the coronation of Charles VII of France. A devout Catholic, he had on his piano a music-rack in which was carved an image of the face of Jesus.

He was made a Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur in July 1888.

Symphony No. 2 in E flat major (1855)

Chamber music

String Quartet in A minor (1895)

String Quartet No. 1 in C Major "Le petit quatuor" (discovered in 1993)

String Quartet No. 2 in A Major (discovered in 1993)

String Quartet No. 3 in F Major (discovered in 1993)

String Quartet in A minor (published as No. 3) (discovered in 1993)

String Quartet in G Major (discovered in 1993)

String Quartet in G minor (discovered in 1993)

Petite symphonie pour neuf instruments à vent (1885) 'Little Symphony for Winds'

Other instrumental

Marche pontificale composed for Pope Pius IX's silver jubilee of priestly ordination in 1869. Since 24 December 1949 it has been the official Papal Anthem.

Funeral March of a Marionette for piano solo (1872), orchestrated (1879), well-known for being the theme music to the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

Works for organ

Audio files

{| |- | | Petite symphonie pour neuf instruments à vent (1885) |- |}

References

Sources

Sadie, S. (ed.) (1980) The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, [vol. # 7].

Scholes. The Oxford Companion to Music, 10th ed., pp. 416–417.

External links

Articles

Sheet music

Score of "Chants sacrés: 60 motets avec accompt. d’orgue ou piano pour messes, saluts, mariages, offices divers" From Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection

Free sheet music on Cantorion.org

Free scores at the Mutopia Project

Recordings

Gounod cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.

Roméo et Juliette Complete MP3 Creative Commons Recording

Performance of Ave Maria

Free Mp3 file of the Fantasie elegante on Gounod's "Faust" by Ignace Leybach, played by John Kersey

Sound-bites from String Quartet in A minor & short bio

Category:1818 births Category:1893 deaths Category:People from Paris Category:French composers Category:French Roman Catholics Category:Opera composers Category:Prix de Rome for composition Category:Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists Category:Romantic composers Category:National anthem writers Category:Academics of the Conservatoire de Paris Category:Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic Society Category:Ballet composers

Roberto Alagna (born 7 June 1963) is a French operatic tenor of Sicilian (Italian) descent. He was born in Clichy-sous-Bois, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.

Early years

Alagna was born outside of the city of Paris in 1963 to a family of Sicilian (Italian) immigrants . As a teenager, the young Alagna began busking and singing pop in Parisian cabarets for tips. Influenced primarily by the films of Mario Lanza, but also from recordings of many historic tenors, he then switched to opera, but remained largely self-taught.

Career

After winning the Luciano Pavarotti Voice Competition, Alagna made his professional debut in 1988 as Alfredo Germont in La Traviata with the Glyndebourne touring company. This led to many engagements throughout the smaller cities in France and Italy, mainly again as Alfredo, a role he would eventually sing over 150 times. His reputation grew and he was soon invited to sing at major theaters such as La Scala in 1990, Covent Garden in 1992 and the Metropolitan Opera as Rodolfo in 1996. His performances of Roméo in Roméo et Juliette by Charles Gounod at Covent Garden in 1994 (opposite Leontina Vaduva) catapulted him to international stardom.

Alagna opened the 2006/07 season at La Scala on 7 December 2006 in the new production of Aïda by Franco Zeffirelli. During the second performance on 10 December, Alagna, whose opening performance was considered ill-at-ease, was booed and whistled from the loggione (the least expensive seats at the very back of La Scala), and he walked off the stage. The tenor's reaction to his public criticism was denounced as immature and unprofessional by La Scala management and Zeffirelli, who said, “A professional should never behave in this way. Alagna is too sensitive, it is too easy to hurt his feelings. He does not know how to act like a true star.” The role of Radames was taken over successfully for the rest of the performance by his understudy Antonello Palombi, who entered on stage wearing jeans and a black shirt. In 2007 while at the Metropolitan Opera singing the role of Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly, Alagna replaced the indisposed Rolando Villazon as Romeo in Roméo et Juliette opposite Anna Netrebko for two performances in September and two performances in December. His wife had flown to New York to be with him for the September engagements, and as a result was fired from the Lyric Opera of Chicago for missing her rehearsal dates for La Bohème. Alagna was also engaged by the Metropolitan Opera at the last minute to cover for the indisposed Marco Berti in a 16 October 2007 performance of Aida. After the performance, the audience gave him a standing ovation. The December 15 performance of Roméo et Juliette starring Alagna and Netrebko was broadcast by the Met into 447 theaters worldwide in high definition and seen by about 97,000 people.

Personal life

Alagna's first wife, Florence Lancien, died of a brain tumor in 1994; they had one daughter, Ornella, who was born in 1992. In 1996 he married Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu. The couple have sung together often onstage and have made many recordings together both of duets and arias and complete operas. The two singers also starred in a film version of Puccini's Tosca directed by French film director Benoît Jacquot. In October 2009, Alagna said in an interview in Le Figaro that he and Angela Gheorghiu had separated. Following the separation, Gheorghiu declined to appear opposite him in Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera in December 2009.

References

Metropolitan Opera, Alagna, Roberto (Tenor), performance record from MetOpera database

External links

Reviews, articles, photos and future schedules from The Opera Critic

Discography at SonyBMG Masterworks

Concert photos

Roberto Alagna in an excerpt from Tosca.

Category:1963 births Category:Living people Category:People from Clichy-sous-Bois Category:French male singers Category:French opera singers Category:French tenors Category:Operatic tenors Category:French buskers Category:French people of Italian descent Category:French people of Sicilian descent

for NBC's 1947 promotional book.]]

Robert Merrill (June 4, 1917 – October 23, 2004) was an American operatic baritone.

Early life

Merrill was born Moishe Miller, later known as Morris Miller, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, to tailor Abraham Miller, originally Milstein, and his wife Lillian, née Balaban, immigrants from Warsaw, Poland.

His mother claimed to have had an operatic and concert career in Poland (a fact denied by her son in his biographies) and encouraged her son to have early voice training: he had a tendency to stutter, which disappeared when singing. Merrill was inspired to pursue professional singing lessons when he saw the baritone Richard Bonelli singing Count Di Luna in a performance of Il Trovatore at the Metropolitan Opera, and paid for them with money earned as a semi-professional pitcher.

Radio and recordings

In his early radio appearances as a crooner he was sometimes billed as Merrill Miller. While singing at bar mitzvahs and weddings and Borscht Belt resorts, he met an agent, Moe Gale, who found him work at Radio City Music Hall and with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. With Toscanini conducting, he eventually sang in two of the maestro's NBC broadcasts of famous operas, La traviata (with Licia Albanese, in 1946), and Un ballo in maschera (with Herva Nelli, in 1954). Both of those broadcasts were eventually released on both LP and CD. His ranking as an important NBC performer is evidenced by his inclusion in NBC's 1947 promotional book, NBC Parade of Stars: As Heard Over Your Favorite NBC Station, displaying Sam Berman's caricatures of leading NBC personalities.

Merrill's 1944 operatic debut was in Verdi's Aida at Newark, New Jersey, with the famous tenor Giovanni Martinelli, then in the later stages of his long operatic career. Merrill, who had continued his vocal studies under Samuel Margolis made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1945, as Germont in La Traviata. Also in 1945, Robert Merrill recorded a 78rpm record set with Jeanette MacDonald featuring selections from the operetta Up In Central Park; MacDonald and Merrill did two duets together on this album.

Films

His role in the musical comedy film Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick (1952) led to a conflict with Sir Rudolf Bing and a brief departure from the Met in 1951. Merrill sang many different baritone roles, becoming, after the untimely on-stage death of the celebrated Leonard Warren in 1960, the Met's principal baritone. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he appeared under the direction of Alfredo Antonini in performances of arias from the Italian operatic repertoire for the open air Italian Night concert series at Lewisohn Stadium in New York City..

He was described by Time as "one of the Met's best baritones". The tenor-baritone duet "Au fond du temple saint" from the opera The Pearl Fishers by Georges Bizet, which he recorded with Jussi Björling, was always top of listener's polls for the BBC's Your Hundred Best Tunes. It was also No 1. in ABC's "The Classic 100 Opera", a poll in which Australians voted for the one moment in opera they could not live without. It is regarded as one of the most perfect tenor/baritone performances of all time. Yet reviews were not consistently good: Opera magazine reported on a Metropolitan Opera performance of Barber of Seville in which Merrill delivered "by all odds the most insensitive impersonation of the season". He was accused by the reviewer of "loud, coarse sounds" and "no grace, no charm, as he butchered the text and galumphed around the stage".

Merrill also continued to perform on radio and television, in nightclubs and recitals. In 1973, Merrill teamed up with Richard Tucker to present a concert at Carnegie Hall—a first for the two "vocal supermen" (as one critic dubbed them), and a first "for the demanding New York public and critics" Merrill recalled. The event marked a precedent that would lead eventually to the "Three Tenors" concerts many years later. Merrill retired from the Met in 1976. For many years, he led services, often in Borscht Belt hotels, on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

In honor of Merrill's vast influence on American vocal music, on February 16, 1981 he was awarded the prestigious University of Pennsylvania Glee Club Award of Merit. Beginning in 1964, this award "established to bring a declaration of appreciation to an individual each year that has made a significant contribution to the world of music and helped to create a climate in which our talents may find valid expression."

In 1996, at a reception at Lincoln Center, Merrill was presented with The Lawrence Tibbett Award from the AGMA Relief Fund, honoring his fifty years of professional achievement and dedication to colleagues. (The AGMA Relief Fund, award sponsor, provides financial assistance and support services to classical performing artists in need.)

Relatively late in his singing career, Merrill also became known for singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Yankee Stadium. He first sang the national anthem to open the 1969 baseball season, and it became a tradition for the Yankees to bring him back each year on Opening Day and special occasions. He sang at various Old Timer's Days (wearing his own pinstriped Yankee uniform with the number "1 1/2" on the back) and the emotional pre-game ceremony for Thurman Munson at Yankee Stadium on August 3, 1979, the day after the catcher's death in a plane crash. A recorded Merrill version is sometimes used at Yankee Stadium today. He preferred a traditional approach to the song devoid of additional ornamentation, as he explained to Newsday in 2000, "When you sing the anthem, there's a legitimacy to it. I'm extremely bothered by these different interpretations of it." Merrill appeared as himself in a cameo role, singing the national anthem, in the 2003 film Anger Management. Merrill joked that an entire generation of people know him as "The 'Say-Can-You-See' guy!" (Agmazine, April 1996).

Merrill received the National Medal of Arts in 1993.

Personal life

While there has been dispute regarding his birth year (some claim he was born in 1919), the Social Security Death Index, his family, and his gravestone state that he was born in 1917.

Merrill married soprano Roberta Peters in 1952. They parted amicably; he had two children, a son David and a daughter Lizanne, with his second wife, Marion (d. March 20, 2010), née Machno, a pianist. Merrill liked to play golf and was a member of the Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York, for many years.

He always maintained a warm sense of humor and once recalled the time a young contractor was working in his New Rochelle, NY home. Surveying the photos, posters, plaques and other music memorabilia in the Merrill home, the young man asked Merrill, "You're a singer, aren't you?" "Yes," he responded. "You sing opera, don't you?" the worker asked. "A little," replied Merrill. (Agmazine, April 1996).

He wrote two books of memoirs, Once More from the Beginning (1965) and Between Acts (1976), and he co-authored a novel, The Divas (1978). Merrill toured all over the world with his arranger and conductor, Angelo DiPippo, who wrote most of his act and performed at concert halls throughout the world. He always donated his time on the Cerebral Palsy telethon with Dennis James.

Death

Robert Merrill died at home in New Rochelle, New York, while watching Game 1 of the 2004 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals. He is interred at the Sharon Gardens Cemetery in Valhalla, New York, which is a subdivision of the Kensico Cemetery. His headstone features an opera curtain that has been drawn open. In keeping with Jewish tradition, small rocks rest on top of the headstone.

His epitaph states: :Like a bursting celestial star, he showered his family and the world with love, joy, and beauty. Encore please.

Performances with the Metropolitan Opera

Robert Merrill made 769 performances with the Metropolitan Opera in the following 21 roles:

{|class="wikitable sortable" !Composer!!Opera!!Role!!First performance!!Last performance!!Total performances |- |Verdi||La traviata||Germont||align="center" | 1945-12-15||align="center" | 1976-03-15||align="center" | 132 |- |Donizetti||Lucia di Lammermoor||Enrico||align="center" | 1945-12-29||align="center" | 1965-01-23||align="center" | 16 |- |Bizet||Carmen||Escamillo||align="center" | 1946-01-07||align="center" | 1972-01-04||align="center" | 81 |- |Mussorgsky||Boris Godunov||Shchelkalov||align="center" | 1946-11-21||align="center" | 1947-04-21||align="center" | 5 |- |Gounod||Faust||Valentin||align="center" | 1946-12-23||align="center" | 1972-05-04||align="center" | 48 |- |Verdi||Aida||Amonasro||align="center" | 1947-01-11||align="center" | 1973-06-01||align="center" | 72 |- |Rossini||Il Barbiere di Siviglia||Figaro||align="center" | 1947-11-15||align="center" | 1966-06-04||align="center" | 46 |- |Verdi||Il trovatore||Count di Luna||align="center" | 1947-12-11||align="center" | 1973-05-30||align="center" | 73 |- |Saint-Saëns||Samson et Dalila||High Priest||align="center" | 1949-11-26||align="center" | 1950-04-30||align="center" | 10 |- |Verdi||Don Carlo||Rodrigo||align="center" | 1950-11-06||align="center" | 1972-06-21||align="center" | 51 |- |Leoncavallo||Pagliacci||Silvio||align="center" | 1951-02-09||align="center" | 1951-02-09||align="center" | 1 |- |Leoncavallo||Pagliacci||Tonio||align="center" | 1952-03-14||align="center" | 1964-04-02||align="center" | 22 |- |Verdi||Rigoletto||Rigoletto||align="center" | 1952-11-15||align="center" | 1972-02-05||align="center" | 56 |- |Puccini||La bohème||Marcello||align="center" | 1952-12-27||align="center" | 1954-02-01||align="center" | 10 |- |Verdi||Un ballo in maschera||Renato||align="center" | 1955-02-26||align="center" | 1976-05-29||align="center" | 56 |- |Donizetti||Don Pasquale||Malatesta||align="center" | 1956-04-09||align="center" | 1956-12-10||align="center" | 8 |- |Ponchielli||La Gioconda||Barnaba||align="center" | 1958-12-11||align="center" | 1962-04-16||align="center" | 13 |- |Verdi||La forza del destino||Don Carlo||align="center" | 1961-12-12||align="center" | 1972-06-09||align="center" | 33 |- |Giordano||Andrea Chénier||Carlo Gérard||align="center" | 1962-10-15||align="center" | 1966-03-22||align="center" | 7 |- |Verdi||Otello||Iago||align="center" | 1963-03-10||align="center" | 1965-05-07||align="center" | 18 |- |Puccini||Tosca||Scarpia||align="center" | 1964-10-23||align="center" | 1974-12-09||align="center" | 11 |- |-class="sortbottom" |}

Studio recordings

Robert Merrill made at least 23 studio recordings of complete operas:

{|class="wikitable sortable" !Composer!!Opera!!Role!!Date |- |Bizet||Carmen||Escamillo||1951, 1963 |- |Donizetti||Lucia di Lammermoor||Enrico||1961 |- |Leoncavallo||Pagliacci||Silvio||1953 |- |Leoncavallo||Pagliacci||Tonio||1967 |- |Mascagni||Cavalleria rusticana||Alfio||1953 |- |Ponchielli||La Gioconda||Barnaba||1967 |- |Puccini||La bohème||Marcello||1956, 1961 |- |Puccini||Manon Lescaut||Lescaut||1954 |- |Puccini||Il tabarro||Michele||1962 |- |Rossini||Il barbiere di Siviglia||Figaro||1958 |- |Straus||Der tapfere Soldat||Bumerli||1952 |- |Verdi||Aida||Amonasro||1961 |- |Verdi||Un ballo in maschera||Renato||1966 |- |Verdi||Falstaff||Ford||1963 |- |Verdi||La forza del destino||Don Carlo||1964 |- |Verdi||Rigoletto||Rigoletto||1956, 1963 |- |Verdi||La traviata||Germont||1960, 1962 |- |Verdi||Il trovatore||Conte di Luna||1964 |- |-class="sortbottom" |}

Listen to

WNYC Soundcheck: Robert Merrill Remembered (October 26, 2004)

References

External links

Robert Merrill official site

Robert Merrill at Findagrave.com

Discography of opera recordings (Capon's Lists of Opera Recordings)

The New York Times, Obituary, October 26, 2004

"Great Singers Remembered: Robert Merrill" by Philip Ehrensaft. La Scena Musicale, May 14, 2005

Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients Category:New York Yankees Category:People from Brooklyn Category:Jewish American musicians Category:Jewish classical musicians Category:1917 births Category:2004 deaths Category:Operatic baritones Category:American male singers Category:American opera singers Category:RCA Victor artists Category:American musicians of Polish descent Category:American people of Polish-Jewish descent Category:People from New Rochelle, New York Category:Jewish opera singers

Renata Tebaldi (Pesaro, Italy, February 1, 1922 – San Marino, December 19, 2004) was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period. Acclaimed as one of the most beloved opera singers of all time, she primarily focused on the verismo roles of the lyric and dramatic repertoires.

Early years

Tebaldi was born Renata Ersilia Clotilde Tebaldi in Pesaro, the daughter of a cellist, Teobaldo Tebaldi, and Giuseppina Barbieri, a gifted singer who had wanted a singing career but eventually became a nurse instead. Very soon, the parents split up and Renata, together with her mother, moved to the latter's home town, Langhirano in the Province of Parma.

Stricken with polio at the age of three, Tebaldi was unable to take part in strenuous activities and instead became interested in music. She was a member of the church choir in Langhirano and her mother sent her to piano lessons with Signorina Passani in Parma at the age of thirteen; she worked with boundless diligence, practising four or five hours a day and dreaming of a career as a concert pianist. She also sang everything she heard. Her main source of inspiration was listening to the radio. It was not until her piano teacher took the initiative that Renata was sent to Italo Brancucci, a singing teacher at the conservatory of Parma. She began studying a short time later at the conservatory, taking lessons with Ettore Campogalliani for three years. Renata had to concentrate on scales and voice training for two years before she was allowed to learn the first songs towards the end of her second year of training.

Carmen Melis

She went off to spend a Christmas holiday with her father's brother, her uncle Valentino, at Pesaro. There, as operatic destiny would have it, Valentino owned a small café where the famous former diva Carmen Melis came to buy pastries. Melis was a teacher at the Pesaro Conservatory. Valentino talked to Melis about his niece, and the diva finally consented to audition the young girl. Melis had been a soprano prima donna at La Scala in Milan and had sung with Caruso and Titta Ruffo.

Melis was to become Tebaldi's most important teacher: the next day, and for the remainder of her holiday, Tebaldi worked with Melis; when she returned to Parma, the improvement was so drastic that no one believed it was the same voice. It was then that she determined to move to Pesaro permanently, where she lived with her father's family and took classes with Melis both at the conservatory and privately. Melis organised a scholarship for her and Tebaldi made her first public appearance singing "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana" from Catalani's La Wally at the theatre in Urbino. At the age of 22, Tebaldi made her debut as Elena in Boito's Mefistofele in Rovigo. She performed several more times in Parma - in La Bohème, L'amico Fritz and Andrea Chénier and started working, again through Melis, with the conductor and singing teacher Giuseppe Pais in Milan 1944. An audition for Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the Scala's director, came to nothing as there were hardly any performances anymore during the war years. She made her debut as Desdemona in Trieste alongside Francesco Merli and caused a stir.

Arturo Toscanini

Her major breakthrough came in 1946, when she auditioned in Milan for Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini was favorably impressed, calling her "voce d'angelo" (angel voice). Tebaldi made her La Scala debut that year at the concert which marked the reopening of the theatre after World War II. She sang the "Prayer" ("Dal tuo stellato soglio") from Rossini's biblical opera, Mosè in Egitto, as well as the soprano part in Verdi's Te Deum. She was given the operatic roles of Margherita and Elena in Mefistofele and Elsa in Lohengrin in 1946. The following year, she appeared in La Bohème and as Eva in Die Meistersinger. Toscanini encouraged her to sing the role of Aida and invited her to rehearse the role in his studio. She was of the opinion that the role of Aida was reserved for a dramatic soprano, but Toscanini convinced her and she made her role debut at La Scala in 1950 alongside Mario del Monaco and Fedora Barbieri in a performance conducted by Antonino Votto. This was the greatest success in her still young career and was to launch her international career.

Her voice was used for Sophia Loren's singing in the film version of Aida (1953).

International career

She went on a concert tour with the La Scala ensemble in 1950, first to the Edinburgh Festival and then on to London, where she made her debut as Desdemona in two performances of Otello at Covent Garden and in the Verdi Requiem, both conducted by Victor de Sabata.

Tebaldi and Callas

By the early 1950s, Tebaldi was firmly entrenched at La Scala. But a new star had appeared on the scene: Maria Callas. In 1950 Callas was taken on at La Scala as substitute Aida for an indisposed Tebaldi. Matters came to a head in 1951 when both were with an Italian company touring South America. Perhaps unwisely, the two of them were engaged to appear in the same concert. Afterwards Callas accused Tebaldi of breaking a no-encore agreement, when she delivered not one but two extra arias. The squabble continued when Callas criticised Tebaldi's interpretation of Violetta in Traviata, which Tebaldi has to transpose down, and suggested that she give up the role. The in-fighting continued during the rest of an acrimonious tour. The culmination of this rivalry came in an article in Time magazine where Callas was quoted as saying that comparing herself to Tebaldi was like comparing champagne with Coca-Cola. However, witnesses to the interview stated that Callas only said "champagne with cognac" after which a bystander quipped, "No, with Coca-Cola", but the Time reporter attributed the comment to Callas.

Although she had a very powerful voice, Tebaldi always considered herself a lyric soprano. Even though the young Tebaldi successfully performed roles in operas and works by (among others) Rossini, Spontini, Mozart, Handel and Wagner she eventually centered her career on verismo and late Verdi roles, roles not as well suited to Callas' voice. Callas, in contrast, considered herself a dramatic coloratura soprano and started her career in the heaviest roles, but soon after, concentrated on the bel canto repertoire, which were not a good fit for Tebaldi's vocal range and technique. How much of the rivalry was real, and how much whipped up by fans and the press, is open to question. Some also believe that the entire rivalry was instigated by their respective recording companies in order to boost sales, and that they were instructed to play along. According to Time magazine, when Callas quit La Scala, "Tebaldi made a surprising maneuver: she announced that she would not sing at La Scala without Callas. 'I sing only for artistic reasons; it is not my custom to sing against anybody', she said." Nevertheless, Tebaldi apparently felt that the public perception of a rivalry was ultimately good for both their careers, since it aroused so much interest in the two of them.

In the end, however, there was a reconciliation. After Tebaldi had inaugurated the 1968 Met season with Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, Callas, who by that time had given her last opera performance, went backstage to congratulate Tebaldi. It was the last time the two sopranos were to meet.

The Met

Tebaldi made her American debut in 1950 as Aïda at the San Francisco Opera; her Metropolitan Opera debut took place on January 31, 1955, as Desdemona opposite Mario del Monaco's Otello. For some twenty years, she made the Met the focus of her activities. For the 1962/1963 season, Tebaldi convinced the director of the Met, Rudolf Bing, to stage a revival of Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur. The opera had not been staged since the turn of the century, but Bing was convinced that it would be a great success for Tebaldi, and for Franco Corelli, who sang the role of Maurizio. Unfortunately, Tebaldi was not in top vocal form. Alarmed, she took a thirteen-month hiatus from the stage. She later returned as Mimi to great acclaim.

She sang more at the Met and far less elsewhere. She had developed a special rapport with the Met audiences and became known as "Miss Sold Out". She sang there some 270 times in La bohème, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Manon Lescaut, La Fanciulla del West, Otello, La forza del destino, Simon Boccanegra, Falstaff, Andrea Chénier, La Gioconda and Violetta in a production of La traviata created specially for her. She made her last appearance there as Desdemona on 8 January, 1973 in the same role in which she had made her debut eighteen years earlier.

Later years

By the end of her career, Tebaldi had sung in 1,262 performances, 1,048 complete operas, and 214 concerts.

Tebaldi retired from the stage in 1973 and from the concert hall in 1976. She spent the majority of her last days in Milan. She died at age 82 at her home, in San Marino. She is buried in the family chapel at Mattaleto cemetery (Langhirano).

Museum

Since February 2010, the 15th century Castle of Torrechiara – Langhirano – has hosted within its rooms a permanent exhibition dedicated to Renata Tebaldi. This “Castle for a Queen” unveils the many sides of this great “diva”, whose artistic and personal life remain on display. The items showcased followed her over the arc of time as she spread the world-class tradition of Italian lyrical art…all the way from the beginning of her career and throughout her artistic achievements. The exhibition is presented by the Renata Tebaldi Committee in collaboration with Superintendence of Environmental Heritage and Landscape of the province of Parma and Piacenza, the Regio Theatre Foundation of Parma and the Municipality of Langhirano and with the patronage of the province of Parma.

References

Notes

Websites

Tebaldi, Renata -- Encyclopedia Britannica

External links

Official Site

Renata Tebaldi a New Tribute

International Jose Guillermo Carrillo Foundation

A Tribute to Renata Tebaldi (including discography)

YouTube - Renata Tebaldi is Madama Butterfly Tebaldi sings "Un Bel Di Vedremo" from Puccini's Madama Butterfly in this 1959 video.

Discography (Capon's Lists of Opera Recordings)

Category:1922 births Category:2004 deaths Category:People from Pesaro Category:Italian female singers Category:Italian opera singers Category:Italian sopranos Category:Italian Roman Catholics Category:Operatic sopranos Category:Grammy Award winners

Name	Mado Robin
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Madeleine Marie Robin
Born	December 29, 1918
Died	December 10, 1960
Genre	Opera
Voice type	Soprano

Madeleine Marie Robin, known as Mado Robin (December 29, 1918December 10, 1960), was a French coloratura soprano.

She was born in Yzeures-sur-Creuse, Touraine. A star of television and radio in the 1950s, she was well known in France. Among her roles were Lakmé, which she recorded for Decca Records in 1952 (with Georges Sébastian conducting), Lucia di Lammermoor, Olympia in The Tales of Hoffmann, Gilda in Rigoletto, Rosina in The Barber of Seville, and Leyla in Les pêcheurs de perles. In 1954 she went to San Francisco to sing Lucia and Gilda, and had a successful tour of the Soviet Union with 16 concerts over a few weeks.

She hit D above double-high C in live performance in Vichy (D7 in scientific pitch notation or about 2349 Hz.

At 17 she married Alan Smith, an Englishman, who died shortly after World War II in a car crash. She had one daughter. Mado died in Paris in 1960 from cancer (some sources state liver cancer, others leukaemia) a few days before the 1500th performance of Lakmé at the Opéra-Comique, which had organized the event for her birthday.

A museum to her life opened in her home town in 2009.

Videography

In 1994, the Bel Canto Society released a video-cassette of her performances, entitled "Mado Robin Live!": Included are excerpts from Lakmé, Mireille, Rigoletto, Hamlet, Il barbiere di Siviglia and Lucia di Lammermoor.

External links

Mado Robin in an excerpt from Mireille (1958).

Category:1918 births Category:1960 deaths Category:French opera singers Category:Operatic sopranos Category:French sopranos Category:Deaths from leukemia Category:Cancer deaths in France

Earl Wild (November 26, 1915 – January 23, 2010) was an American pianist widely recognized as a leading virtuoso of his generation. Harold C. Schonberg called him a "super-virtuoso in the Horowitz class". He was known as well for his transcriptions of classical music and jazz. He was also a composer.

Biography

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Wild was a musically precocious child and studied under Selmar Janson, Simon Barere and Egon Petri, among others. As a teenager, he started making transcriptions of romantic music and composition.

He was the first pianist to perform a recital on U.S. television, in 1939, as staff pianist for NBC. In 1997 he was also the first pianist to stream a performance over the Internet.

In 1942, Arturo Toscanini invited him for a performance of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which was a resounding success and made him a household name. During World War II, Wild served in the United States Navy as a musician. A few years after the war he moved to the newly formed American Broadcasting Company (ABC) as a staff pianist, conductor and composer until 1968. He performed many times for the Peabody Mason Concert series in Boston, in 1952, 1968, and 1971 and three concerts of Liszt in 1986 Wild was renowned for his virtuoso recitals and master classes held around the world, from Seoul, Beijing, and Tokyo to Argentina, England and throughout the United States.

Earl Wild created numerous virtuoso solo piano transcriptions - 14 songs by Rachmaninoff, and works on themes by Gershwin. His Grand Fantasy on Airs from Porgy and Bess, the first extended piano paraphrase on an American opera, was recorded in 1976 and had its concert premiere in Pasadena on December 17, 1977. He also wrote Seven Virtuoso Études on Popular Songs, based on Gershwin songs such as "The Man I Love", "Fascinating Rhythm" and "I Got Rhythm".

He also wrote a number of original works. These included a large-scale Easter oratorio, Revelations (1962), the choral work The Turquoise Horse (1976), and the Doo-Dah Variations, on a theme by Stephen Foster (1992), for piano and orchestra. His Sonata 2000 had its first performance by Bradley Bolen in 2003 and was recorded by Wild for Ivory Classics

Wild recorded extensively for Ivory Classics, an American classical music record label.

Wild, who was openly gay, lived in Palm Springs, California with his domestic partner of 38 years, Michael Rolland Davis. He died aged 94 of congestive heart disease at home in Palm Springs.

Discography

The Virtuosity of Earl Wild

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos Nos. 1–4; Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

Earl Wild - Chopin: Scherzos & Ballades

Earl Wild Plays Liszt (The 1985 Sessions)

Earl Wild at 88

Earl Wild plays Gershwin

Earl Wild – The Romantic Master

Earl Wild at 30 - Live Radio Broadcasts from the 1940's (Ivory Classics)

The Virtuoso Piano - Earl Wild (Vanguard Classics)

The Demonic Liszt - Earl Wild (Vanguard Classics)

Earl Wild Performs his own Compositions and Transcriptions (Ivory Classics)

References

External links

Earl Wild's web page

About the pianist

Earl Wild's biography

About the pianist

Earl Wild - Daily Telegraph obituary

Category:1915 births Category:2010 deaths Category:People from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:20th-century composers Category:American classical pianists Category:American composers Category:American conductors (music) Category:American jazz pianists Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in California Category:Carnegie Mellon University alumni Category:Deaths from congestive heart failure Category:Grammy Award winners Category:LGBT musicians from the United States

Name	Deanna Durbin
Caption	Deanna Durbin on the cover of Yank Magazine, January 1945.
Birth name	Edna Mae Durbin
Birth date	December 04, 1921
Birth place	Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Years active	1936–1948
Occupation	Actress/Singer
Spouse	Vaughn Paul (1941–1943) Felix Jackson (1945–1949) Charles David (1950–1999)}}

Deanna Durbin (born December 4, 1921) is a Canadian-born, Southern California-raised retired singer and actress, who appeared in a number of musical films in 1930s and 1940s singing standards as well as operatic arias.

Durbin made her first film appearance in 1936 with Judy Garland in Every Sunday, and subsequently signed a contract with Universal Studios. Her success as the ideal teenage daughter in films such as Three Smart Girls (1936) was credited with saving the studio from bankruptcy. In 1938 Durbin was awarded the Academy Juvenile Award.

Later, as she matured, Durbin grew dissatisfied with the girl-next-door roles assigned to her, and attempted to portray a more womanly and sophisticated style. The film noir Christmas Holiday (1944) and the whodunit Lady on a Train (1945) were, however, not as well received as her musical comedies and romances had been.

Durbin withdrew from Hollywood and retired from acting and singing in 1949. She married film producer-director Charles Henri David in 1950, and the couple moved to a farmhouse in the outskirts of Paris. Since then she has withdrawn from public life.

Early life

Born Edna Mae Durbin at Grace Hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, she was given the professional name Deanna at the beginning of her association with Universal Studios in 1936, when she was still 14 years old. Her parents, James and Ada Durbin, were immigrants from Lancashire, England who would become U.S. citizens after moving their family from Winnipeg to Southern California in 1923. Durbin had an older sister named Edith, who recognized Deanna's musical talents at an early age and helped Deanna to take singing lessons at Ralph Thomas Academy. This led to her discovery by MGM in 1935. In late 1936, Cesar Sturani, who was the General Music Secretary of the Metropolitan Opera, offered Deanna Durbin an audition. Durbin turned down his request because she felt she needed more singing lessons. Andrés de Segurola, who was the vocal coach working with Universal Studios (and himself a former Metropolitan Opera singer), believed that Deanna Durbin had an excellent opportunity to become an opera star. Andrés de Segurola had been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera to watch her progress carefully and keep them advised. Durbin started collaboration with Eddie Cantor's radio show in 1936. This collaboration lasted until 1938 when her heavy workload for Universal Studios made it imperative for Durbin to discontinue her weekly appearances on Eddie Cantor's radio show.

Career

Durbin signed a contract with MGM in 1935 and made her first film appearance in a short subject, Every Sunday (1936), with another young contract player, Judy Garland. The film was to serve as an extended screen test for the pair as studio executives were questioning the wisdom of having two female singers on the roster. Ultimately Louis B. Mayer decreed that both girls would be kept, but by the time that decision was made Durbin's contract option had elapsed.

Durbin was quickly signed to a contract with Universal Studios and made her first feature-length film Three Smart Girls in 1936. The huge success of her films was reported to have saved the studio from bankruptcy. In 1938 she received a special Academy Juvenile Award, along with Mickey Rooney. Such was Durbin's international fame and popularity that diarist Anne Frank pasted her picture to her bedroom wall in the Achterhuis where the Frank family hid during World War II. The picture can still be seen there today, and was pointed out by Frank's friend Hannah Pick-Goslar in the documentary film Anne Frank Remembered.

Joe Pasternak who produced many of the early Deanna Durbin movies said about her:

"Deanna's genius had to be unfolded, but it was hers and hers alone, always has been, always will be, and no one can take credit for discovering her. You can't hide that kind of light under a bushel. You just can't, no matter how hard you try!"

In 1936, Durbin auditioned to provide the vocals for Snow White in Disney's animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but was ultimately rejected by Walt Disney, who declared the 15 year old Durbin's voice "too old" for the part.

Durbin is perhaps best known for her singing voice, variously described as being light but full, sweet, unaffected and artless. With the technical skill and vocal range of a legitimate lyric soprano, she performed everything from popular standards to operatic arias. Dame Sister Mary Leo in New Zealand was so taken with Durbin's technique that she trained all her students to sing in this way. Sister Mary Leo produced a large number of famous sopranos including Dames Malvina Major and Kiri Te Kanawa.

The Russian cellist/conductor Mstislav Rostropovich in a late 1980s interview cited Deanna as one of his most important musical influences, stating: "She helped me in my discovery of myself. You have no idea of the smelly old movie houses I patronized to see Deanna Durbin. I tried to create the very best in my music, to try and recreate, to approach her purity."

Durbin was the heroine of two 1941 novels, Deanna Durbin and the Adventure of Blue Valley and Deanna Durbin and the Feather of Flame, both written by Kathryn Heisenfelt and published by Whitman Publishing Company. "The heroine has the same name and appearance as the famous actress but has no connection ... it is as though the famous actress has stepped into an alternate reality in which she is an ordinary person." The stories were probably written for a young teenage audience and are reminiscent of the adventures of Nancy Drew. They are part of a series known as "Whitman Authorized Editions", 16 books published between 1941-1947 that featured a film actress as heroine.

Between December 15, 1936 and July 22, 1947, Deanna Durbin recorded 50 tunes for Decca Records. While often re-creating her movie songs for commercial release, Durbin also covered independent standards, like "Kiss Me Again", "My Hero", "Annie Laurie", "Poor Butterfly", "Love's Old Sweet Song" and "God Bless America".

The star-making five-year association of Deanna Durbin, producer Joe Pasternak and director Henry Koster ended following the film It Started With Eve in 1941. After Pasternak moved from Universal to MGM, Durbin went on suspension between October 16, 1941 and early February 1942 for refusing to appear in They Lived Alone, scheduled to be directed by Koster. Ultimately, the project was canceled when Durbin and Universal settled their differences. In the agreement, Universal conceded to Durbin the approval of her directors, stories and songs.

Durbin married an assistant director, Vaughn Paul, in 1941 and they were divorced in 1943. Her second marriage, to film writer-producer-actor Felix Jackson in 1945, produced a daughter, Jessica Louise Jackson, and ended in divorce in 1949.

In private life, Durbin continued to use her given name; salary figures printed annually by the Hollywood trade publications listed the actress as "Edna Mae Durbin, player." Her studio continued to cast her in musicals, and filmed two sequels to her original success, Three Smart Girls. The second sequel was a wartime story called Three Smart Girls Join Up, but Durbin issued a press release announcing that she was no longer inclined to participate in these team efforts and was now performing as a solo artist. The Three Smart Girls Join Up title was changed to Hers to Hold. Joseph Cotten, who played alongside Deanna Durbin in Hers to Hold, praised her integrity and character in his autobiography.

She made her only Technicolor film in 1944, Can't Help Singing, featuring some of the last melodies written by Jerome Kern plus lyrics by E. Y. Harburg. A musical comedy in a Western setting, this production was filmed mostly on location in southern Utah. Her co-star was Robert Paige, who is better known for his work in television dramas in the 1950s.

Durbin tried to assume a more sophisticated movie persona in such vehicles as the World War II story of refugee children from China, The Amazing Mrs. Holliday (1943), directed in part by Jean Renoir, who left the project before its completion; the film noir Christmas Holiday (1944), directed by Robert Siodmak, and the whodunit Lady on a Train (1945), but her substantial fan base preferred her in light musical confections.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's groundbreaking Broadway production of Oklahoma! in 1943 might have showcased Deanna Durbin as original Laurie, but Universal refused to accept the proposal.

In 1945 and 1947, Deanna Durbin was the top-salaried woman in the United States. Her fan club ranked as the world's largest during her active years.

In 1946, her employers merged with two other companies to create Universal-International, and the new regime discontinued much of Universal's familiar product and scheduled only a few musicals. Durbin stayed on for another four pictures, but her two releases of 1948, Up in Central Park, a film adaptation of the 1945 Broadway musical, and then what became her last feature, For the Love of Mary, saw her international box-office clout diminish. On August 22, 1948, two months after the latter film was finished, Universal-International announced a lawsuit which sought to collect from Durbin $87,083 in wages the studio had paid her in advance. Durbin settled the complaint amicably by agreeing to star in three more pictures, including one to be shot on location in Paris. Ultimately, the studio would allow Deanna's contract to expire on August 31, 1949, so the three films were not produced. Durbin, who obtained a $200,000 ($|r=0}}}} as of ), severance payment chose at this point to retire from movie making, already having turned down Bing Crosby's request for her to appear in his 1949 attractions for Paramount Pictures: Top o' the Morning and/or A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Personal life

In Paris on December 21, 1950, Deanna Durbin, shortly after turning 29 years old, married Charles David, the producer-director of both French and American pictures who had guided her through Lady on a Train (1945). Durbin and David raised two children: Jessica (from her second marriage to Felix Jackson) and Peter (from her union with David).

Over the years, Durbin resisted numerous offers to perform again, including two choice proposals by MGM, asking her to take the female lead in the screen version of Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate (1953), and to costar with Mario Lanza in Sigmund Romberg's operetta, The Student Prince (1954). As for stage shows, Durbin had been invited to play Kiss Me Kate 's Lilli Vanessi in London's 1951-52 West End production, and reportedly, Alan Jay Lerner first had Deanna in mind to portray Eliza Doolittle in the 1956 Broadway cast of My Fair Lady. Suggestions that Durbin vocalize at the major Las Vegas casinos went unfulfilled.

She granted only one interview in 1983, to film historian David Shipman, steadfastly asserting her right to privacy. She maintains that privacy today, declining to be profiled on Internet websites.

However, Durbin has made it known that she did not like the Hollywood studio system. She has emphasized that she never identified herself with the public image that the media created around her. She speaks of the Deanna "persona" in the third person and considers the film character Deanna Durbin a by-product of her youth and not her true self.

Durbin's husband of over 48 years, Charles David, died in Paris on March 1, 1999.

Legacy

Deanna Durbin has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1722 Vine Street.

Frank Tashlin's 1937 Warner Bros. cartoon The Woods are Full of Cuckoos contains an avian caricature of Deanna Durbin called "Deanna Terrapin".

Durbin's name found its way into the introduction to a song written by satirical writer Tom Lehrer in 1965. Prior to singing "Whatever Became of Hubert?", Lehrer said that Vice President Hubert Humphrey had been relegated to "those where-are-they-now columns: Whatever became of Deanna Durbin, and Hubert Humphrey, and so on."

She is mentioned in Richard Brautigan's novel Trout Fishing in America, when the narrator claims to have seen one of her movies seven times, but can't recall which one.

Filmography

{| border="2" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%;" |- bgcolor="#CCCCCC" align="center" ! Year ! Film ! Role ! Other notes |- |rowspan= 2|1936 | Every Sunday | Edna | short subject (opposite Judy Garland) |- | Three Smart Girls | Penelope "Penny" Craig |Academy Juvenile Award |- |rowspan= 1|1937 | One Hundred Men and a Girl | Patricia Cardwell | |- |rowspan= 2|1938 | Mad About Music | Gloria Harkinson | |- | That Certain Age | Alice Fullerton | |- |rowspan= 3|1939 | Three Smart Girls Grow Up | Penny Craig | |- | For Auld Lang Syne: No. 4 | Herself | short subject |- | First Love | Constance "Connie" Harding | |- |rowspan= 2|1940 | It's a Date | Pamela Drake | (a short subject, Gems of Song, was excerpted from this feature in 1949) |- | Spring Parade | Ilonka Tolnay | |- |rowspan= 3|1941 | Nice Girl? | Jane "Pinky" Dana | |- |A Friend Indeed | Herself | short subject for the American Red Cross |- | It Started with Eve | Anne Terry | |- |rowspan= 4|1943 | The Amazing Mrs. Holliday | Ruth Kirke Holliday | |- | Show Business at War | Herself | short subject |- | Hers to Hold | Penny Craig | |- | His Butler's Sister | Ann Carter | |- |rowspan= 3|1944 | Road to Victory | Herself | short subject |- | Christmas Holiday | Jackie Lamont/Abigail Martin | |- | Can't Help Singing | Caroline Frost | her only film in Technicolor |- |rowspan= 1|1945 | Lady on a Train | Nikki Collins/Margo Martin | |- |rowspan= 1|1946 | Because of Him | Kim Walker | |- |rowspan= 2|1947 | I'll Be Yours | Louise Ginglebusher | |- | Something in the Wind | Mary Collins | |- |rowspan= 2|1948 | Up in Central Park | Rosie Moore | |- | For the Love of Mary | Mary Peppertree | |- |}

Deanna Durbin songs

* A Heart That`s Free [From "100 Hundred Men and a Girl"]

Alice Blue Gown

Alleluia [From "100 Hundred Men and a Girl"]

Always [From "Christmas Holiday"]

Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful)

Amapola [From "First Love"]

Annie Laurie

Any Moment Now [From "Can`t Help Singing"]

Ave Maria [From "Mad About Music"]

Ave Maria [From "It's a Date"]

Be A Good Scout [From "That Certain Age"]

Because [From "Three Smart Girls Grow Up"]

Begin the Beguine [From "Hers to Hold"]

Beneath the Lights of Home [From "Nice Girl"]

Brahms' Lullaby [From "I'll Be Yours"]

Brindisi (Libiamo ne' lieti calici) [From "100 Hundred Men and a Girl"]

Californ-I-Ay

Can't Help Singing [From "Can`t Help Singing"]

Can't Help Singing (Deanna Durbin & Robert Paige) [From "Can`t Help Singing"]

Carmena Waltz

Chapel Bells [From "Mad About Music"]

Cielito Lindo (Beautiful Heaven)

Ciribiribin

Danny Boy [From "Because of Him"]

Embrace Me

Every Sunday (with Judy Garland)

Filles de Cadiz (The Maids of Cadiz) [From "That Certain Age"]

Gimme a Little Kiss, Will Ya, Huh? [From "Lady on a Train"]

God Bless America

Goin' Home [From "It Started With Eve"]

Goodbye [From "Because of Him"]

Granada [From "I'll Be Yours"]

Home! Sweet Home! [From "First Love"]

Il Bacio (The Kiss) [From "Three Smart Girls"]

I'll Follow My Sweet Heart

I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen [From "For The Love Of Mary"]

I'll See You In My Dreams

I Love to Whistle [From "Mad About Music"]

(I'm) Happy Go Lucky and Free [From "Something in the Wind"]

(I'm) Happy Go Lucky and Free [From "Something in the Wind"] (Deanna Durbin & Donald O'Connor)

In the Spirit of the Moment [From "His Butler's Sister"]

Italian Street Song

It's a Big, Wide, Wonderful World [From "For The Love Of Mary"]

It`s Dreamtime [From "I'll Be Yours"]

It's Foolish But It's Fun [From "Spring Parade"]

It's Only Love [From "Something In The Wind"]

It's Raining Sunbeams [From "100 Men and a Girl"]

Invitation To The Dance [From "Three Smart Girls Grow Up"]

Je Veux Vivre (from Roméo et Juliette) [From "That Certain Age"]

Kiss Me Again

La Estrellita (Little Star)

Largo Al Factotum (from The Barber of Seville) [From "For The Love Of Mary"]

Loch Lomond [From "It's a Date"]

Love At Last [From "Nice Girl"]

Love Is All [From "It's a Date"]

Lover [From "Because of Him"]

Love's Old Sweet Song

Make Believe (Jerome Kern song)

Molly Malone

More and More [From "Can`t Help Singing"]

More And More/Can't Help Singing [From "Can`t Help Singing"]

Musetta's Waltz (from La bohème) [From "It's a Date"]

My Heart Is Singing [From "Three Smart Girls Grow Up"]

My Hero

My Own [From "That Certain Age"]

Nessun Dorma (from Turandot) [From "His Butler's Sister"]

Never in a Million Years/Make Believe

Night and Day [From "Lady on a Train"]

O Come All Ye Faithful

Old Folks at Home [From "Nice Girl"]

On Moonlight Bay [From "For The Love Of Mary"]

One Fine Day (from Madama Butterfly) [From "First Love"]

One Night Of Love

* Pace, Pace, Mio Dio (La forza del destino) [From "Up In Central Park"]

Pale Hands I Loved (Kashmiri Song) [From "Hers to Hold"]

Perhaps [From "Nice Girl"]

Poor Butterfly

Russian Medley [From "His Butler's Sister"]

Sari Waltz (Love's Own Sweet Song) [From "I'll Be Yours"]

Say a Pray'r for the Boys Over There [From "Hers to Hold"]

Seal It With a Kiss

Seguidilla (from Carmen) [From "Hers To Hold"]

Serenade to the Stars [From "Mad About Music"]

Silent Night [From "Lady On A Train"]

Someone to Care for Me [From "Three Smart Girls"]

Something in the Wind [From "Something in the Wind"]

Spring in My Heart [From "First Love"]

Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year [From "Christmas Holiday"]

Swanee - Old Folks At Home [From "Nice Girl"]

Summertime (from Porgy And Bess)

Sweetheart

Thank You America [From "Nice Girl"]

The Blue Danube [From "Spring Parade"]

The Last Rose of Summer [From "Three Smart Girls Grow Up"]

The Old Refrain [From "The Amazing Mrs. Holiday"]

The Prince

The Turntable Song [From "Something in the Wind"]

There`ll Always Be An England [From "Nice Girl"]

Two Guitars ["Две гитары" - Russian Gypsy Folk song (Lyrics - Apollon Grigoriev, music - Ivan Vasiliev), from "His Butler's Sister" (1943)]

Two Hearts

Un bel di vedremo (from Madama Butterfly) [From "First Love"]

Viennese Waltz [From "For The Love Of Mary"]

Vissi d'arte (from Tosca) [From "The Amazing Mrs. Holiday"]

Waltzing in the Clouds [From "Spring Parade"]

When April Sings [From "Spring Parade"]

When I Sing [From "It Started with Eve"]

When The Roses Bloom Again

When You`re Away [From "His Butler's Sister"]

You Wanna Keep Your Baby Looking Nice, Don't You [From "Something in the Wind"]

You`re As Pretty As A Picture [From "That Certain Age"]

References

External links

The Deanna Durbin Database

The Deanna Durbin Page

YouTube - Deanna Durbin "The Turntable Song" Something in the Wind - The opening scene of Something in the Wind - "The Turntable Song"

YouTube - Deanna Durbin "Mighty like a Rose" w. Frank Lebby Stanton m. Ethelbert Nevin (see also "Mighty Lak' a Rose")

Photographs of Deanna Durbin

Deanna Durbin Devotees

Category:1921 births Category:Living people Category:Academy Juvenile Award winners Category:Canadian expatriates in France Category:Canadian female singers Category:Canadian sopranos Category:Canadian film actors Category:Canadian people of English descent Category:People from Paris Category:People from Winnipeg Category:Decca Records artists Category:Opera crossover singers Category:20th-century actors

Charles François, (1922), is a Belgian administrator, editor and scientist in the field of cybernetics, systems theory and systems science, internationally known for his main work the International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics.

Biography

Charles François was born in Belgium in 1922, and studied consular and commercial sciences at Brussels Free University. After the Second World War he emigrated to the Belgian Congo, where he stayed from 1945 to 1960, at first as an administrative officer in government and later on creating and developing his own commercial business. Later, he moved to South America to Argentina in 1963, and managed the commercial Office of the Belgian Embassy in Buenos Aires from 1966 to his retirement in 1987.

François founded the Group for the Study of Integrated Systems (GESI), Argentine National Division of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS), in 1976, being presently its Honorary President. He is an Honorary Member of the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR) and founding editor of the International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, Honorary President of the Latin American Association of Systemics (ALAS), Honorary Professor of ITBA, Buenos Aires, and visiting Professor at various universities in Argentina.

He became a member of systemic boards and integrates the editorial boards of various journals on Systems and Cybernetics.

In 2007 he received from the American Society for Cybernetics, the Norbert Wiener golden medal as a tribute for his work on cybernetics.

Work

In 1952 François came in contact with cybernetics through Norbert Wiener's Cybernetics. In 1958 he joined the Society for General Systems Research now the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS). Since 1970, François has participated in numerous meetings of various systems and cybernetics societies. Many courses and seminars on systemics and cybernetics were given by Charles François in Argentina and also in Perú at the IAS; the last edition of them is his "Curso de Teoría General de Sistemas y Cibernética con representaciones gráficas", a CD-Rom with more than 280 drawings edited by GESI in 2007.

Publications

François has published some books and dozens of articles and papers:

Books

1976, Cybernétique et Prospective, Namur : International Association of Cybernetics, 1976.

1978, Introducción à la Prospectiva Buenos Aires : Pleamar, 1978.

1985, El uso de Modelos Sistémicos-Cibernéticos como metodología científica, (Systemic-Cybernetic Models used as scientific methodology)

1986, Enfoques Sistémicos en el Estudio de las Sociedades (Systemic Approaches to the Study of Societies).

1992, Diccionario de Teoría General de Sistemas y Cibernética, Buenos Aires : GESI. The first work of its kind in Spanish (475 terms).

1997, International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, edited by Charles François, München: K. G. Saur. The Academic board of this Encyclopedia includes members such as: John N. Warfield, Robert Trappl, Ranulph Glanville, Anthony Judge, Markus Schwaninger, Heiner Benking, Matjaz Mulej, and Gerhard Chroust. (2nd volume 2004)

Articles & papers, a selection:

1982, "A systemic study of socio-historical systems", paper 1982.

1999, "Systemics and Cybernetics in a Historical Perspective, ".

2000, Hidden long term systemic constraints in present day socio-economical global mutation of mankind, paper.

2002, Foreign Debt mechanism: The "Cow in the corral" paper.

2004, The need for an integrated systemic-cybernetic language for concepts and models in complex and vague subject areas:... lecture at the presentation of the 2nd volume of the second edition of the International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, Humboldt University, Saur Library, Berlin, 2004.

References

External links

Homepage from Charles François at the IFSR, with many links.

Category:1922 births Category:Systems scientists Category:Living people

Cecilia Bartoli (; born June 4, 1966 in Rome) is an Italian mezzo-soprano opera singer and recitalist. She is best-known for her interpretation of the music of Mozart and Rossini, as well as for her performances of lesser-known Baroque and classical music. She is known for having the versatility to play both soprano and mezzo roles, and is sometimes considered a soprano with a low tessitura. Bartoli's coloratura skill has earned her the title the Queen of Agility.

Biography

Bartoli is considered a coloratura mezzo-soprano (Koloratur-Mezzosopran) with an unusual timbre. She is one of the most popular (and one of the top-selling) opera singers of recent years. Bartoli is much liked by the concert-going public for her lively, vivacious on-stage persona, while her lyric voice and investigations of other Baroque-era music have given her considerable recognition even among the non-opera-going public.

Bartoli's parents, Silvana Bazzoni and Pietro Angelo Bartoli, were both professional singers and gave her her first music lessons. Her first public performance was at age eight as the shepherd boy in Tosca.

In contrast to most opera singers, Bartoli came to prominence in her early twenties, unusual in a profession where vocal maturity is typically not achieved until the thirties. She made her professional opera début in 1987 at the Arena di Verona. The following year she undertook the role of Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville at the Oper der Stadt Köln, the Schwetzingen Festival and the Zürich Opera earning rave reviews. In June 2010 she sang the title role of Bellini's Norma for the first time with conductor Thomas Hengelbrock in a concert in the Konzerthaus Dortmund.

She often performs with Ensemble Il Giardino Armonico. In 2010 Bartoli received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize.

Discography

Opera

Halevy:Clari (2008)

Bellini: La Sonnambula (2008)

Mozart: Don Giovanni (2001)

Handel: Rinaldo (2000)

Haydn:Armida (2000)

Mozart: Mitridate (1999)

Rossini: Il Turco in Italia (1998)

Haydn: Orfeo ed Euridice (1997)

Mozart: La Clemenza di Tito (1995)

Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro (1994)

Puccini: Manon Lescaut (1993)

Rossini: La Cenerentola (1993)

Mozart: Lucio Silla (1991)

Rossini: Il Barbiere di Siviglia (1989)

Rossini:La Scala di seta (1988)

Recitals with orchestra

Sacrificium (Arias written for Castrati) (2009)

Maria (A Tribute to Maria Malibran) (2007)

Opera Proibita (2005)

The Salieri Album (2003)

Gluck Italian Arias (2001)

Cecilia and Bryn (1999)

The Vivaldi Album (1999)

Mozart Portraits (1994)

Rossini Heroines (1992)

Mozart Arias (1991)

Rossini Arias (1989)

Recitals with piano

Live in Italy (1998)

An Italian Songbook (1997)

Chant D'Amour (1996)

Italian Songs (1993)

Arie Antiche (1992)

If You Love Me –– “Se tu m’ami”: Eighteenth-century Italian Songs (1992)

Rossini Recital (1990)

Sacred

Pergolesi: Stabat Mater, Salve Regina (2000)

Scarlatti: Salve Regina

Mozart: Requiem (1992)

Cantatas

Rossini Cantatas Volume 2

Collections

Sospiri (2010)

The Art of Cecilia Bartoli (2002)

A Portrait (1995)

Cecilia Bartoli Rossini Heroines (1992)

References

Sources

Blyth, Alan: "Cecilia Bartoli", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed October 20, 2008), (subscription access)

Wroe, Nicholas, "Classic case of success", The Guardian, 13 October 2001. Retrieved on 2009-04-03

Swafford, Jan, Nature's Rejects, The music of the castrati., Slate, 9 November 2009

External links

Official website

Bartoli's Record Label

Vivaldi with Il Giardino Armonico, YouTube.com

Category:1966 births Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:Living people Category:Italian female singers Category:Italian mezzo-sopranos Category:Italian opera singers Category:Operatic mezzo-sopranos Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Category:Performers of early music Category:Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia alumni Category:Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music

, one of her signature roles.]] Anna Moffo (June 27, 1932 - March 9, 2006) was an Italian-American opera singer and one of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation. She possessed a warm and radiant voice of considerable range and agility, and was an affecting singing-actress of great physical beauty.

Biography

She was born in Wayne, Pennsylvania to Italian parents, Nicola Moffo (a shoemaker) and his wife Regina Cinti. After graduating from Radnor High School, she turned down an offer to go to Hollywood and went instead to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where she studied with Eufemia Giannini-Gregory, sister of soprano Dusolina Giannini. In 1954, on a Fulbright Program scholarship, she left for Italy to complete her studies at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome where she was a pupil of Mercedes Llopart and Luigi Ricci. Moffo made her official operatic debut in 1955 in Spoleto as Norina in Don Pasquale.

Shortly after, still virtually unknown and little experienced, she was offered the challenging role of Cio-Cio-San in an Italian television (RAI) production of Madama Butterfly. The telecast aired on January 24, 1956, and made Moffo an overnight sensation throughout Italy. Offers quickly followed and she appeared in two other television productions that same year, as Nannetta in Falstaff and as Amina in La Sonnambula. She appeared as Zerlina in Don Giovanni, at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and made her recording debut for EMI as Nannetta (Falstaff) under Herbert von Karajan, and as Musetta in La Bohème with Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano and Rolando Panerai. The following year (1957) saw her debut at the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, at La Scala in Milan and the Teatro San Carlo in Naples.

Moffo returned to America for her debut there, as Mimì in La Bohème next to Jussi Björling's Rodolfo, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago on October 16, 1957. Her Metropolitan Opera of New York debut took place on November 14, 1959 as Violetta in La traviata, a part that would quickly become her signature role. She performed at The Metropolitan Opera for seventeen seasons in roles such as Lucia, Gilda, Adina, Mimi, Liù, Nedda, Pamina, Marguerite, Juliette, Manon, Mélisande, Périchole, the four heroines of Les contes d'Hoffmann, etc.

Moffo was also invited at the San Francisco Opera where she made her debut as Amina on October 1, 1960. During that period she also made several appearances on American television, while enjoying a successful international career singing at most major opera houses around the world (Stockholm, Berlin, Monte Carlo, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, etc.). She made her debut at the Royal Opera House in London, as Gilda, in a Franco Zeffirelli production of Rigoletto, in 1964.

In the late 1950s, she recorded Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, opposite Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Giuseppe Taddei, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, and recitals of Mozart arias and coloratura arias with EMI, and then became an exclusive artist with RCA Victor with whom she recorded most of her best operatic roles.

Moffo remained particularly popular in Italy and performed there regularly. She hosted a weekly program on Italian television "The Anna Moffo Show" from 1960 until 1973 and was voted one of the ten most beautiful women in Italy. She appeared in film versions of La traviata (1968) and Lucia di Lammermoor (1971), both directed by her first husband Mario Lanfranchi, as well as a few non-operatic films. In the early 1970s, she began appearing on German television and in operetta films such as Die Csárdásfürstin and Die schöne Galathee. She also recorded with Eurodisc the title roles in Carmen and Iphigenie in Aulis, as well as the role of Hansel in Hänsel und Gretel.

Such a heavy workload however led to physical exhaustion and a serious vocal-breakdown in 1974, from which she never fully recovered. Although she was able to resume her career in 1976, she appeared only sporadically. Her last appearance at the Met was during the 1983 Centennial celebrations, where she sang the Sigmund Romberg duet "Will You Remember?" with Robert Merrill. After retiring from singing Moffo remained active in the opera community as a Board Member of the Metropolitan Opera Guild and by hosting several tributes and giving occasional masterclasses.

Moffo was married twice, first to stage and film director Mario Lanfranchi, on December 8, 1957. The couple divorced in 1972. Her second marriage was to RCA executive Robert Sarnoff, on November 14, 1974. Sarnoff died on February 22, 1997.

Anna Moffo spent the last years of her life in New York City, where she died at the age of 73, of a stroke following a decade-long battle with breast cancer.

Selected RCA recordings

1957 - Puccini - Madama Butterfly - Anna Moffo, Cesare Valletti, Rosalind Elias, Renato Cesari - Rome Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf.

* 1960 - Anna Moffo - Arias from Faust, La bohème, Dinorah, Carmen, Semiramide, Turandot, Lakmé - Rome Opera Orchestra, Tullio Serafin.

* 1960 - Verdi - La traviata - Anna Moffo, Richard Tucker, Robert Merrill - Rome Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Fernando Previtali.

* 1961 - Puccini - La bohème - Anna Moffo, Richard Tucker, Mary Costa, Robert Merrill, Giorgio Tozzi, Philip Maero - Rome Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf.

* 1962 - Pergolesi - La serva padrona - Anna Moffo, Paolo Montarsolo - Rome Philharmonic Orchestra, Franco Ferrara

* 1962 - Recital of Verdi Heroines - The RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra, Franco Ferrara

* 1963 - Verdi - Rigoletto - Robert Merrill, Anna Moffo, Alfredo Kraus, Rosalind Elias, Ezio Flagello - The RCA Italiana Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Georg Solti.

* 1963 - Puccini - Manon Lescaut (Highlights) - Anna Moffo, Flaviano Labò, Robert Kerns - The RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra and Chorus, René Leibowitz.

* 1963 - Massenet - Manon (Highlights) - Anna Moffo, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Robert Kerns - The RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra and Chorus, René Leibowitz.

* 1964 - Canteloube - Songs of the Auvergne: Bailero - Anna Moffo - American Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski

* 1964 - Verdi - Luisa Miller - Anna Moffo, Carlo Bergonzi, Shirley Verrett, Cornell MacNeil, Giorgio Tozzi, Ezio Flagello - The RCA Italiana Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Fausto Cleva.

* 1965 - Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice - Shirley Verrett, Anna Moffo, Judith Raskin - Polyphonic Chorus of Rome, I Virtuosi di Roma, Renato Fasano.

* 1965 - Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor - Anna Moffo, Carlo Bergonzi, Mario Sereni, Ezio Flagello - The RCA Italiana Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Georges Prêtre.

* 1966 - Puccini - La Rondine - Anna Moffo, Daniele Barioni, Graziella Sciutti, Piero de Palma, Mario Sereni - The RCA Italiana Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli.

* 1974 - Massenet - Thais - Anna Moffo, Gabriel Bacquier, José Carreras - Ambrosian Opera Chorus, New Philarmonia Orchestra, Julius Rudel.

* 1976 - Montemezzi - L'Amore dei tre re - Anna Moffo, Plácido Domingo, Pablo Elvira, Cesare Siepi - Ambrosian Opera Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra, Nello Santi.

Sources

The Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia, edited by David Hamilton, (Simon and Schuster, New York 1987). ISBN 0-671-16732-X

* The Metropolitan Opera Guide to recorded Opera, edited by Paul Gruber, (W.W. Norton & Company, 1993). ISBN 0-393-03444-5

External links

Opera News obituary

Anna Moffo – The Internet Movie Database.

Category:1932 births Category:2006 deaths Category:American opera singers Category:Operatic sopranos Category:Deaths from breast cancer Category:Deaths from stroke Category:American musicians of Italian descent Category:People from New York City Category:People from Delaware County, Pennsylvania Category:Cancer deaths in New York Category:Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia alumni Category:Curtis Institute of Music alumni