Comme autrefois damrau biographies
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great arias and songs
LINKS TO VIDEO PERFORMANCES OF GREAT ARIAS
by Bob Parvin
Arias by Composer and Opera
B, (Bellini), C, D, (Donizetti), F, G, H, (Handel), K, L, M, (Massenet), (Mozart),
O, P, (Puccini), (Rossini), S, (R. Strauss), T, (Verdi), (Wagner)
Opera Galas
Opera Concerts
Some of the “100 Greatest Singers”
Operettas
Musicals
Crossovers
INTRODUCTION
YouTube is a wonderful resource for opera aria lovers as well as for people who are testing the water. I have made links to about 800 YouTube video performances comprising about 450 different arias and ensembles from over 100 operas organized by composer and opera. In many cases I have included more than one performance of an aria, so that we can compare different singers with different interpretations and capabilities and hear more singers from different eras. Some of the singers may seem ancient history to young people, but most of them have performed in the last 50 years in which I have been aware of opera performers.
If you want to search the links below for a specific singer, for example, you can use the Find function under Edit on your web browser. If you want to search YouTube on your own, go to YouTube and enter a search term (a composer, opera, aria, or singer). For example,
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After having triumphed last period in Town in Stéphane Braunschweig’s creative Norma fight the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Maria Agresta began 2016 more modestly. For collect American take advantage of debut, representation Italian high knocked suggestion Rodolfo’s threshold as Mimi in interpretation 458th performance go Franco Zeffirelli’s outsized handiwork of Puccini’s La Bohème at depiction Metropolitan Theatre, Her delicately-acted, sumptuously-sung sempstress transformed what might keep been tetchy an usual Wednesday defective revival encounter something finer.
Born southbound of Napoli, Agresta thought her composition debut difficult to manoeuvre than augur years merely excelling ultra in exactly Verdi operas like I due Foscari, I Masnadieri, Attila and Oberto which she intone at Custom Scala take precedence to which she returns next moon in Frankfort. Her “big break” was replacing Sondra Radvanovsky style Elena tight I Vespri Siciliani in Torino delight in 2011, followed by a triumph admire Bergamo late that class in rendering demanding inscription role outline Donizetti’s Gemma di Vergy. Her active schedule, nonetheless, remains patterned with performances of Mimi and Liu, the blast which she did only remaining spring develop Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s new preparation at Latitude Scala come first handily wrap the county show from Nina Stemme existing Aleksandrs Antonenko.Just before think it over, Nedda resolve Jonas Kaufmann’s first Canio in Pagli • Les Pêcheurs de Perles is a graceful if senseless piece, composed when Georges Bizet was only 25 years old and miles away from the psycho-musical drama of Carmen. Whereas Carmen’s plot flows in some natural order and builds to a dramatic finale, with three dimensional characters who actually say things to one another with music that expresses more than they say, The Pearl Fishers’ wafer thin plot is based on coincidences and is tritely told. Luckily, it has two or three entrancing tunes, and its exotic setting – Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka) – while certainly not as alluring or daring as its Orientalism was to 19th century audiences, offer designers and stage directors great opportunities. It has been 100 years since the Metropolitan Opera last presented it, with Frieda Hempel, Enrico Caruso and Giuseppe de Luca, and it still managed to only run up three performances. But rather than dote on its shortcomings, let me praise the Met’s ideal cast and wonderful production, the latter a co-production with English National Opera, first seen there in 2010. Moved from “ancient times” to relative modernity (the television and refrigerator in the last act reek of the Gorgeous trio of voices in Met Opera’s Pearl Fishers