Portal:Opera/Singer of the month/Archive
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[edit] April 2008
[edit] Plácido Domingo
José Plácido Domingo Embil KBE (born January 21, 1941), better known as Plácido Domingo, is a world-renowned operatic tenor, known for his versatile and strong voice that possesses a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range. He is considered to be one of the most talented and hardest working musicians, with 130 roles in his repertoire (as of March 2008), more than any other tenor. He is also admired for his tremendous acting ability, his keen musicality and broad musical intellect, and the impressive number and variety of opera roles that he has mastered.
Perhaps the most versatile of all living tenors, Domingo has sung 126 roles on stage and as many as 130 roles (when also counting studio recorded roles) in six different languages, ranging from Mozart to Ginastera. His main repertoire however is Italian (Otello, Cavaradossi in Tosca, Don Carlo, Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut, Dick Johnson in La fanciulla del West , Radames in Aida), French (Faust, Werther, Don José in Carmen, Samson in Samson et Dalila), and German (Lohengrin, Parsifal, and Siegmund in Die Walküre). He continues to add more operas to his repertoire, the latest was Handel's Tamerlano as "Bajazet" on March 26, 2008 at Teatro Real.
- See also: List of recordings by Plácido Domingo
[edit] May 2008
[edit] Birgit Nilsson
Birgit Nilsson (May 17, 1918 – December 25, 2005) was a Swedish dramatic soprano who specialized in operatic and symphonic works. Her voice was noted for its overwhelming force, bountiful reserves of power and the gleaming brilliance and clarity in the upper register. Birgit Nilsson (pronounced [bɝˈgiːt]) came from a rural background and had to work hard to gain acceptance in the world of music, but she made so strong an imprint on many roles that they came to be known as the "Nilsson repertory". She sang the operas of Richard Strauss and made a specialty of Puccini's "Turandot," but it was the music of Wagner that made her career.
Birgit Nilsson was widely known as the leading Wagnerian soprano of her time, the successor to the great Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad, particularly in the role of Brünnhilde. However, she also sang many of the other famous soprano roles, among them Leonore, Aida, Turandot, Tosca, Elektra, and Salome. She had, according to The New York Times, a "voice of impeccable trueness and impregnable stamina". Her career was long and distinguished and continued into the 1980s, when she mostly sang Elektra and the Dyer’s Wife. Nilsson astounded audiences in live performance with the unforced power of her voice, which cut through dense orchestration, and with her interpretive powers grew as her career developed, and she became a moving artist as well as a vocal phenomenon.
