Historical Singers

@historicalsingers

This blog is about my favorite historical singers, from the dawn of recording up until the late 20th century. Most of them are classical or opera singers, but I love many other types of music (especially jazz), so surprises are to be expected. I use the phrase "historical singer" somewhat loosely to refer to any retired or dead artist who may be considered to have made a significant contribution to the history of singing. Enjoy!

2,370 posts

Posts

Leonilda Gabbi Paini sings Norma (1903)

Born in Parma in 1863, Leonilda Gabbi Paini was Adalgisa Gabbi’s younger sister. She made her debut in 1882, at the age of nineteen, and enjoyed a substantial twenty-year career, making notable appearances in operas such as Don Carlo, Aida, and Die Walküre. The present recording was made in 1903, when she chose to retire from the stage at the age of forty. Despite clear evidence of vocal decline, it preserves an interesting echo of what must, in its prime, have been a glorious voice trained in the grand nineteenth-century manner. Leonilda Gabbi Paini died in Parma in 1919.

#Gabbi Paini #Bellini #Norma

Montserrat Caballé sings Bellini’s Adelson e Salvini (1967)

#Caballe #Bellini #Adelson e Salvini

Daniela Dessì sings I Capuleti e i Montecchi (1991)

Daniela Dessì passed away on Aug. 20th.

#Dessi #Bellini #I Capuleti e i Montecchi

Charles Panzéra sings Gabriel Fauré’s Les Berceaux (1936)

#Panzera #Faure

Patrice Munsel sings Lucia di Lammermoor (1952) Patrice Munsel passed away on Aug. 4th.

#Munsel #Donizetti #Lucia di Lammermoor

Elena Souliotis sings La Forza del Destino

#Souliotis #Verdi #La Forza del Destino

Maria Callas sings Norma (1963)

This comes from the complete recording of a recital that Callas gave in Stuttgart on May 23rd, 1963. Despite some evidence of strain and a missed high note in the cabaletta, this is a very fine performance by any standard. She actually sounds quite a bit better than in the 1958 Paris performance, for instance.

#Callas #Bellini #Norma

entertainmentweekly

Marni Nixon, singing voice of Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn, dies at 86

“It gets harder and harder to adapt yourself to the person you’re dubbing. Eventually you want to play the character yourself.”

operacontour

And Deborah Kerr in “The King and I”

#Nixon

Marni Nixon sings Anton Webern’s Fünf Lieder (Op. 4), accompanied by Leonard Stein

Marni Nixon, Hollywood’s most famous “ghost” singer, passed away yesterday, according to the New York Times. Besides dubbing such famous film stars as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Deborah Kerr, and Natalie Wood, she had a keen interest in twentieth-century music, which she frequently performed and recorded. She was nominated for two Grammy awards, one for her recording of Schoenberg songs, and the other for her Copland album.

Here, her flawless legato, pure lyric tone, and careful diction emphasize the post-Romantic loveliness of these early (1908-09) Webern songs. The delivery is perhaps too monochromatic; these pieces belong, after all, to the tradition of German lieder, and as such call for a greater variety of moods (an interesting comparison could be made with Suzanne Danco’s very fine recordings of Schoenberg songs, which have similar qualities and limitations). However, this ought to be prescribed listening for anyone who believes that twentieth-century music is too “difficult” to enjoy.

#Nixon #Webern

Gilda Dalla Rizza and Giulio Fregosi sing La Traviata (1928)

#Dalla Rizza #Fregosi #Verdi #La Traviata

Renata Tebaldi sings Adriana Lecouvreur (1961)

The aria proper is sung with exquisite grace, but the lines from Racine’s Bajazet are marred by two ugly aspirates: “Del sultano Hamuratte m’arrendo hall’imper.” Tebaldi would never have allowed herself such a thing when singing, but her diction curiously seems to fail her when she does not have the music to support her.

#Tebaldi #Cilea #Adriana Lecouvreur

Giulio Fregosi, Tina Poli Randaccio, and Vittorio Fullin sing Ernani (1927)

#Fregosi #Poli Randaccio #Fullin #Verdi #Ernani

Lawrence Tibbett and Lily Pons sing Rigoletto (1935)

#Tibbett #Pons #Verdi #Rigoletto

Nicolai Gedda sings Reynaldo Hahn’s L’Heure exquise (1968)

This song, a setting of a poem by Paul Verlaine, is about the exquisite beauty of a summer night on the French Riviera. “Rêvons, c’est l’heure” — “The time has come. Now let us dream.”

#Gedda #Hahn