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| The bulk of this cd comprises an operatic concert given at Lyric Opera
house in 1956 by three leading Italian stars and George Solti, who was
the company's principal conductor from 1956-57 and would later (in 1969)
accept the directorship of the city's symphony orchestra.
Reanata Tebaldi (born in 1922) made her debut with Chicago s.o. in 1956, appearing with them every year until 1969. During her career and subsequently, she has been widely acknowledged as the finest spinto soprano to come out of Italy in the post-war period. Her debut was as Helen of Troy in Mefistofele in teh small town of Rovigo in 1944, and she took part under Toscanini, in the official concert for the reopening of La Scala two years later. Thereafter she sang regularly at that theatre as well as in Italy's other leading houses, for a decade, before establishing herself in America, and pre-eminently at the Metropolitan, where she sang Italian roles for seventeen seasons, encompassing in all 210 performances of fourteen operas. Many of the excerpts here are from Tebaldi's stage's roles, unusual is aria from Cecilia (1934) an opera composed by Licinio Refice which was made famous by the legendary Claudia Muzio. Giulietta Simionato (born 1910) was another great representative of Italian singing, whose voice, those not especially large, was even in quality and always used with considerable feeling. Her dramatic abilities were equally outstanding, making her a fine ensamble performer; she was also able to take on the vivid characters of the grander nineteenth century works in even the biggest thetres without disappointing. After a surprisingly long period singing small parts Simionato graduated to center stage, and appered in major roles at La Scala and other important houses from 1946 until her retirement twenty years later She made her Chicago debut in 1954, and her many roles with the company included Laura in La Gioconda, Adalgisa, Rosina, Carmen, Azucena, Amneris and Mignon. Ettore Bastianini was born in Siena in 1922 and died from a brain tumor at his home on Lake Garda aged just fourty-four. He had a brief career as a bass (including Tiresias in Oedipus Rex at La Scala in 1948) before making his second debut, as a baritone, in Bologna in 1951. He was engaged by the Metropolitan two years later, singing parts such as Germont, Marcello, Posa , Scarpia, and Amonastro with the company. The Verdi repertoire indeed proved particularly good territory for his grainy, dark timbre, and he was regarded as a leading exponent of Verdi roles in all the main operatic centres including Salzburg festival. Some years after his death his colleague Giulietta Simionato described him as 'the greatest baritone of my generation. His instrument was a mixture of bronze and velvet. And he was a great human being.' George Hall
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Programme:
Renata Tebaldi (1)
Largo al factotum, Il Barbiere di Siviglia,Rossini
Renata Tebaldi
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