You studied with Virginia Zeani? Sweet! I wonder if you know of archive.org and the many performances of opera available there? Specifically those of the Dublin Grand Opera Society. Some volunteers have been digitizing old sound-booth recordings. Some of them are ... well, awful (booth engineer forgets to start the recording at the beginning or, this is true, gets a phone call while recording [so you can hear them talking over the performance]). But some are quite good. In fact, in 1963 DGOS contracted with di Stefano (at the end of his career) and Pavarotti (at the beginning of his career) and there are recordings of both from that season. I bring up archive.org because there is also a very large set of recordings called the Pogonyi Collection. Pogonyi loved "modern" music and for many years recorded on tape (then put on CD) live audio broadcasts of modern music played on the radio. Other folks have done the same and this Pogonyi Collection has over 5,000 sets of digitized music from Europe, the US, and South America. There are MANY modern opera recordings in this collection by Milhaud, Pizzetti, Mascagni, etc. Most of them I've never heard of! Your mention of Zeani called to mind one of the IMO lovely finds there, Mascagni's "Il Piccolo Marat" (a rescue opera). One of the very few commercial recordings of this work has Zeani in the main soprano role, with her husband as well (which I own). I really like this little gem, so much that I did the work to create a google-transcribed libretto so I could update the Wikipedia article about it.
I hadn't dug into archive.org but I will now! Thank you for sharing all this wonderful information. I am definitely going to check out the Zeani stuff, I have never heard of that Mascagni opera! Thank you thank you thank you for sharing!
I should also add that Ms. Zeani sings on more than one of those Dublin Grand Opera Society recordings. And I mis-remembered. Yes, di Stefano and Pavarotti were both engaged for the 1963 season, but there's no recording of Pavarotti's 1963 performance. The first are two from 1964, Traviata and La Boheme.
Incredible that the Pavarotti voice is all there in 1964 (except a wavery high C in Che gelida manina) three years before his Covent Garden triumph and eight years before his Met debut sent the Met audience into a frenzy. Also interesting to realize he started his international career *before* the voice was done, as it were. He continued working on it and that wavery high-C was strengthened sufficient that he was called the King of the High Cs just a few years later after the Covent Garden triumph.
I'm amazed at the level of talented performers! That's my parochial perspective at play. I grew up in the American south. I came to opera as an adult in college, so it was recorded performances I listened to and those of course were all by established record companies with their roster of artists, etc.
The continental music landscape in Europe is something about which I know little. It's intriguing to see what I assume are Italian artists on the DGOS roster who are excellent artists most of whom are unknown to me. I've done some checking on Wikipedia and almost all of them are not represented there (i.e. their careers were not of sufficient international stature to rate an entry in the encyclopedia).
Michele - figure you'll say no or yes, did you know Carole Ann Edwards in your time at IU? Or afterwards? She and I went to Stetson U. together (well, she was several years ahead of me & graduated before I did). I'm fairly sure she did master's level vocal performance work at IU. Now lives in Chicago after she stopped her opera career. Hard to believe she has a son who is now himself a student at Stetson (OMG).
That name doesn't ring a bell but you never know! Whenever I hesitate asking if someone knows someone that seems crazy I stop myself because you never know! It's always worth an ask!
"New" is not necessarily better---we are overwhelmed by media all around us. Great voices and singers do hopefully make themselves known: Pretty Yende; Joan Diego Florez; Yoncheva; Blue; come to my mind as some of the best whom I have heard or seen recently.
You studied with Virginia Zeani? Sweet! I wonder if you know of archive.org and the many performances of opera available there? Specifically those of the Dublin Grand Opera Society. Some volunteers have been digitizing old sound-booth recordings. Some of them are ... well, awful (booth engineer forgets to start the recording at the beginning or, this is true, gets a phone call while recording [so you can hear them talking over the performance]). But some are quite good. In fact, in 1963 DGOS contracted with di Stefano (at the end of his career) and Pavarotti (at the beginning of his career) and there are recordings of both from that season. I bring up archive.org because there is also a very large set of recordings called the Pogonyi Collection. Pogonyi loved "modern" music and for many years recorded on tape (then put on CD) live audio broadcasts of modern music played on the radio. Other folks have done the same and this Pogonyi Collection has over 5,000 sets of digitized music from Europe, the US, and South America. There are MANY modern opera recordings in this collection by Milhaud, Pizzetti, Mascagni, etc. Most of them I've never heard of! Your mention of Zeani called to mind one of the IMO lovely finds there, Mascagni's "Il Piccolo Marat" (a rescue opera). One of the very few commercial recordings of this work has Zeani in the main soprano role, with her husband as well (which I own). I really like this little gem, so much that I did the work to create a google-transcribed libretto so I could update the Wikipedia article about it.
I hadn't dug into archive.org but I will now! Thank you for sharing all this wonderful information. I am definitely going to check out the Zeani stuff, I have never heard of that Mascagni opera! Thank you thank you thank you for sharing!
I should also add that Ms. Zeani sings on more than one of those Dublin Grand Opera Society recordings. And I mis-remembered. Yes, di Stefano and Pavarotti were both engaged for the 1963 season, but there's no recording of Pavarotti's 1963 performance. The first are two from 1964, Traviata and La Boheme.
Incredible that the Pavarotti voice is all there in 1964 (except a wavery high C in Che gelida manina) three years before his Covent Garden triumph and eight years before his Met debut sent the Met audience into a frenzy. Also interesting to realize he started his international career *before* the voice was done, as it were. He continued working on it and that wavery high-C was strengthened sufficient that he was called the King of the High Cs just a few years later after the Covent Garden triumph.
I'm amazed at the level of talented performers! That's my parochial perspective at play. I grew up in the American south. I came to opera as an adult in college, so it was recorded performances I listened to and those of course were all by established record companies with their roster of artists, etc.
The continental music landscape in Europe is something about which I know little. It's intriguing to see what I assume are Italian artists on the DGOS roster who are excellent artists most of whom are unknown to me. I've done some checking on Wikipedia and almost all of them are not represented there (i.e. their careers were not of sufficient international stature to rate an entry in the encyclopedia).
When are we going to hear you sing ?
Michele - figure you'll say no or yes, did you know Carole Ann Edwards in your time at IU? Or afterwards? She and I went to Stetson U. together (well, she was several years ahead of me & graduated before I did). I'm fairly sure she did master's level vocal performance work at IU. Now lives in Chicago after she stopped her opera career. Hard to believe she has a son who is now himself a student at Stetson (OMG).
That name doesn't ring a bell but you never know! Whenever I hesitate asking if someone knows someone that seems crazy I stop myself because you never know! It's always worth an ask!
"New" is not necessarily better---we are overwhelmed by media all around us. Great voices and singers do hopefully make themselves known: Pretty Yende; Joan Diego Florez; Yoncheva; Blue; come to my mind as some of the best whom I have heard or seen recently.