Tag: Opera
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Dame Nellie Melba, the great Australian coloratura soprano
The name Melba comes up nowadays mainly in the context of two popular food items. The first is a widely popular desert, Peach Melba, created in 1892 by the famous French chef Auguste Escoffier for a dinner party given by the Duke of Orleans at the Savoy Hotel to honor the success of the opera…
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Enrico Caruso, the greatest tenor of all time
Enrico Caruso (1873–1921) possessed a voice so remarkable for its power, range, and emotional expressiveness that its distinctive timbre was instantly recognizable. His versatility is illustrated by an incident in Philadelphia when the baritone about to sing the “Coat Song” in La Boheme suddenly lost his voice. Caruso stepped in and sang the aria with…
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The parallel paths of opera and medicine
In 1597 when Jacopo Peri composed Dafne, the first opera ever written, sporadic epidemics of bubonic plague were still striking his city of Florence. Venice was also suffering greatly. It had been visited by the plague twenty-two times, and some 50,000 of its people had died in 1576. The plague affected predominantly the poor in…
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Maria Callas—her inner voice revealed
Eelco WijdicksLea DacyRochester, Minnesota, United States In Prima Donna: The Psychology of Maria Callas, Paul Wink convincingly concludes—based on largely secondary sources—that Maria Callas was not only a wildly ambitious operator who was not known for an emollient manner, but a prime example of narcissism. Wink, a professor of psychology at Wellesley College, used conventional…
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The finality in their voices: Death, disease, and palliation in opera
Lea C. DacyEelco F. M. WijdicksRochester, Minnesota, United States I know she had tuberculosis! She was coughing her brains out . . . but still she kept right on singing.* Operatic death is often glorious, melodious, and heartbreaking. Naturally, composers and librettists can claim pristine ignorance when it comes to the process of dying. Leaving…
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Bad blood: The drama of bloodshed
Emily BoyleDublin, Ireland In some professions, bloodstained clothing is a normal part of the job. The two jobs that come to mind principally are a butcher and a vascular surgeon, although the latter would probably prefer not to be associated with the former! In vascular surgery not every operation results in bloodstained scrubs, although for…