Pappano's Classical Voices

[Mary Chambers]

Then there's the likes of Rogers Covey Crump who just sings up and up without any apparent break at all. Envy, envy.

Once a printed programme named him as Rogers Covey, crump tenor. Apparently after that in some musical circles high tenors were jocularly referred to as 'crump tenors'. He certainly has the name to end all names.

[gurnemanz]

My friend Roderick Sharpe has built a fascinating Patzak site: http://www.wiu.edu/users/mfrls2/patzak/index.htm

Thanks for that link - a good piece of work.

[Barbirollians]

I think Florez is a great singer and just referring to those top Cs from La Fille du Regiment does not do him justice -superbly done as they were .

[verismissimo]

Just got around to the sopranos. Reminded what a great singer was Renata Tebaldi.

[ardcarp]

Just watched the mezzos (whose main operatic roles Papano characterised as 'witches, bitches and breeches'). As the programme neared its end, I thought for one horrible moment that Dame Janet was not going to feature. But never fear, she appeared in person on the programme as lovely, sensible and dignified as ever, and received due homage from AP.
Sad, incidentally, that no footage of Kathleen Ferrier exists....apparently.

[Barbirollians]

I thought that this was a terrific episode and the star of the show was Christa Ludwig .

[gurnemanz]

I thought that this was a terrific episode and the star of the show was Christa Ludwig .

Agreed and looking very fit and on sparkling form at 87. Many cherishable recordings.

[Richard Tarleton]

Yes a great episode. It wouldn't have been complete without a bit of Verrett's spine-chilling O don fatale, and there it was

If anyone hasn't seen it before, here it is - heard to best advantage on the great Giulini recording.

Baker - awesome range. I caught her fairly early in her career in recital with Gerald Moore (at the end of his), and later in Poppaea (ENO), Troyens (ROH), Mary Stuart (ENO), plus Chausson, Duparc, Mahler...

But that Carnegie Hall joke, attributed to her by John Copley....surely he didn't think it was original?

I did wonder, when he was going on about Rossini, whether he might have squeezed Marilyn Horne in somewhere. I went right off La Bartoli after she cancelled on me, twice - nothing quite like walking into a deserted Barbican, having travelled up from the wild west and booked accommodation

[gurnemanz]

Baker - awesome range. I caught her fairly early in her career in recital with Gerald Moore (at the end of his), and later in Poppaea (ENO), Troyens (ROH), Mary Stuart (ENO), plus Chausson, Duparc, Mahler...

From my first LP (the famous Saga song recital with Martin Isepp) Janet Baker has always been special for me. One of those voices you can identify after a couple of bars. Sorry to have seen her live only once and that was almost by chance when we happened to be in London one day in 1977, walking down St Martin's Lane, and noticed that Werther was on at ENO that evening.

[ardcarp]

I was lucky enough to rub shoulders with Janet Baker as a student stage-hand in the 60s. And to hear her from the wings for several nights. Quite apart from her fabulous voice and meticulous preparation, she was a genuinely lovely person...not at all condescending to us poor mortals.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I thought that this was a terrific episode and the star of the show was Christa Ludwig .

[gradus]

Its a great series but as mentioned above when it comes to chest register and coloratura technique Marilyn Horne is/was in a class of her own.

[Barbirollians]

Lovely to see a proper tribute to Ferrier too from Pappano.

[verismissimo]

Bartoli's coloratura in Cenerentola - utterly dazzling!

[Mary Chambers]

Lovely to see a proper tribute to Ferrier too from Pappano.

Not to mention Britten and Pears. I'd seen the Britten clip before, but not the Pears one.