Oberon's Glade

Tag: Irene Dalis

  • Irene Dalis as The Nurse

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    The great mezzo-soprano Irene Dalis (above) found her most memorable role as The Nurse in Richard Strauss’s DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN; I was fortunate enough to have seen her in this opera twice at The Met, and both times she simply dazzled in the fiendishly difficult vocal writing whilst creating a vivid theatrical portrait of this mercurial creature.

    The Nurse above all is devoted – to the point of obsession – to her charge: the half-human/half-spirit Empress, daughter of the mysterious and omniscient Keikobad. In the opera’s opening scene, the Nurse is visited by Keikobad’s messenger. The Empress has been married to the Emperor, a mere mortal, for one year, but as she still does not cast a shadow – the sign of her ability to bear children – Keikobad plans to re-claim her for the spirit world in three days. The Nurse is delighted, as she very much hates the Emperor; she longs to return to Keikobad’s realm.

    The Nurse asks what will become of the Emperor after the Empress is taken by her father; “Er wird zu Stein!” says the Messenger: “He will be turned to stone!” This prospect gives the Nurse even greater satisfaction: “He will be turned to stone!” she repeats. “There do I recognize Keikobad, and bow before him!”

    FRAU ~ opening scene – Irene Dalis & William Dooley – Bohm cond – Met bcast 1966

    January 23, 2017 | Permalink

  • 50 Years Ago Today: My First PARSIFAL

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    Fifty years ago today, on April 20th, 1974, I saw my first performance of Wagner’s PARSIFAL  I was in my twelfth year of being an opera-lover, and I understood the importance of seeing this opera for the first time. I’d heard it twice already on Met Texaco Saturday broadcasts: the first in 1966 with Régine Crespin, Sándor Kónya, Walter Cassel, and Jerome Hines, conducted by Georges Prêtre, and the second in 1971, with Irene Dalis, Mr. Kónya, Thomas Stewart, and Cesare Siepi, conducted by Leopold Ludwig. The music seemed way beyond me at the first hearing, though – having been raised in a devout Christian household – I found a lot of it very moving; in fact, I was sometimes moved to tears, though I was not sure why. By 1971, the music seemed much more immediate and the characters – and their stories – began to seem more meaningful. 

    A lot had happened to me between that 1971 broadcast and the afternoon in 1974 that I walked into The Met for my first live performance of this mythic opera. I was, in fact, pretty down at the time. I’d had my first gay sexual experience in October 1973, only to be dumped by the object of my affection soon after. We’d been friends up until our night together, and it wasn’t until a few weeks after that I found out he already had a serious relationship going.

    Uncharacteristically, I stayed away from Gotham for a while, but I kept in touch with another boy in our group, TJ. I had turned to him for solace, and we grew very close, though our ‘first night’ was a disaster. But we really liked each other, so we eventually got on the same groove. As I recall, it was the day after the PARSIFAL that we went to The Frick and it was there, in the Atrium, that we revealed our feelings and decided to make a go of it. A few weeks later, I went up to The Cape to spend the Summer with him. At the end of the Summer, we tried to resume our lives apart, but we missed each other so much that I moved down to live with him in his dorm room at Sarah Lawrence College.

    Anyway, my diary entry about my first PARSIFAL is much briefer than my usual performance notes. As a rule, my diary was hand-written; I am not sure why I typed this entry: Parsifal 2-1 jpg

    I should perhaps clarify that Ms. Martin soon found the ‘staircase’ to her upper register and went on to be a very fine Sieglinde, Ortrud, Dyer’s Wife, and Tosca. Mr. Thomas, who had been my first Calaf and Tristan, went on singing for another eight seasons, with mixed results. Mr. Macurdy continued to develop and refine his Gurnemanz, and it became one of his greatest roles. 

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    The next opera I saw came five months later; by then, I was happily living on campus at Sarah Lawrence with my bookish boyfriend, and posing as a student. Photo by TJ.

    ~ Oberon

  • Irene Dalis as Fricka

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    The great dramatic mezzo-soprano Irene Dalis in the scene of confrontation between Fricka and Wotan from Act II of Wagner’s DIE WALKURE:

    Irene Dalis as Fricka – WALKURE – w Birgit Nilsson & Otto Edelmann – Leinsdorf cond – Met bcast 1961

    From her 1957 debut there, Irene Dalis sang some 275 performances with the Metropolitan Opera Company – in New York City and on tour – during her twenty-year Met career. Her greatest roles were The Nurse in DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN and Amneris in AIDA. In 1969, her electrifying performance of Verdi’s Egyptian princess at a concert performance at the Sheep Meadow, Central Park, drew an estimated  crowd of 50,000; Dalis’s super-charged singing in the Judgement Scene evoked a thunderous ovation.

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    Following her retirement from singing, Irene Dalis founded Opera San Jose, which she ran with great success for over two decades.

    In August 2007, I wrote an appreciation of Irene Dalis, which she eventually found and read; she sent me a lovely message of thanks.

    ~ Oberon

  • Gods Of The River Styx!

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    Irene Dalis sings the great aria from Gluck’s ALCESTE, in German.

    Irene Dalis – ALCESTE aria (in German)

  • Irene Dalis: “Er wird zu Stein!”

    Dalisobit-blog427

    The great mezzo-soprano Irene Dalis (above) found her most memorable role as The Nurse in Richard Strauss’s DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN; I was fortunate enough to have seen her in this opera twice at The Met, and both times she simply dazzled in the fiendishly difficult vocal writing whilst creating a vivid theatrical portrait of this mercurial creature.

    The Nurse above all is devoted – to the point of obsession – to her charge: the half-human/half-spirit Empress, daughter of the mysterious and omniscient Keikobad. In the opera’s opening scene, the Nurse is visited by Keikobad’s messenger. The Empress has been married to the Emperor, a mere mortal, for one year, but as she still does not cast a shadow – the sign of her ability to bear children – Keikobad plans to re-claim her for the spirit world in three days. The Nurse is delighted, as she very much hates living among humans and longs to return to Keikobad’s realm.

    The Nurse asks what will become of the Emperor after the Empress is taken by her father; “Er wird zu Stein!” says the Messenger: “He will be turned to stone!” This prospect gives the Nurse even greater satisfaction: “He will be turned to stone!” she repeats. “There do I recognize Keikobad, and bow before him!”

    FRAU ~ opening scene – Irene Dalis & William Dooley – Bohm cond – Met bcast 1966

  • Irene Dalis: “Er wird zu Stein!”

    Dalisobit-blog427

    The great mezzo-soprano Irene Dalis (above) found her most memorable role as The Nurse in Richard Strauss’s DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN; I was fortunate enough to have seen her in this opera twice at The Met, and both times she simply dazzled in the fiendishly difficult vocal writing whilst creating a vivid theatrical portrait of this mercurial creature.

    The Nurse above all is devoted – to the point of obsession – to her charge: the half-human/half-spirit Empress, daughter of the mysterious and omniscient Keikobad. In the opera’s opening scene, the Nurse is visited by Keikobad’s messenger. The Empress has been married to the Emperor, a mere mortal, for one year, but as she still does not cast a shadow – the sign of her ability to bear children – Keikobad plans to re-claim her for the spirit world in three days. The Nurse is delighted, as she very much hates living among humans and longs to return to Keikobad’s realm.

    The Nurse asks what will become of the Emperor after the Empress is taken by her father; “Er wird zu Stein!” says the Messenger: “He will be turned to stone!” This prospect gives the Nurse even greater satisfaction: “He will be turned to stone!” she repeats. “There do I recognize Keikobad, and bow before him!”

    FRAU ~ opening scene – Irene Dalis & William Dooley – Bohm cond – Met bcast 1966

  • Janis Martin Has Passed Away

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    Above: Claudio Abbado and soprano Janis Martin prior to a performance of Schoenberg’s ERWARTUNG at La Scala, 1980

    Following yesterday’s news of the death of Irene Dalis, more sad tidings in the opera world today with the passing of Janis Martin, the American mezzo-turned-soprano, a singer who loomed large in my opera-going career. A Met Auditions winner in 1962 (she sang Dalila’s “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix” at the Winners’ Concert), Martin sang nearly 150 performances at the Metropolitan Opera, commencing in 1962 as Flora Bervoix in TRAVIATA. As a young opera-lover, I heard her many times on the Texaco broadcasts. She eventually progressed to “medium-sized” roles: Siebel, Nicklausse, Lola in CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA. Martin left The Met in 1965 and built a career abroad, moving into soprano territory. She returned to The Met and from 1974 thru 1977; during these seasons, she was my first in-house Kundry, Marie in WOZZECK, and Sieglinde. Another hiatus, and then she was back at Lincoln Center from 1988-1992, singing the Witch in HANSEL & GRETEL, the Dyer’s Wife in FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN, Senta, the Foreign Princess in RUSALKA, and two performances of TOSCA.

    In the past couple of months, I’ve taken a renewed interest in Janis Martin’s singing, after first hearing her as Gutrune in a recording of a tremendous GOTTERDAMMERUNG from Bayreuth 1975. This prompted me to pursue her further, acquiring her Senta in a 1972 Vienna HOLLANDER. Waiting in my pile of “to-listen-to” CDs is her WALKURE Fricka, from Bayreuth 1968. I also searched out my old cassettes of her Met broadcast as the Dyer’s Wife (she sings tirelessly, and with great vocal thrust and considerable beauty of tone) and I purchased her commercial recording of ERWARTUNG with Pierre Boulez conducting, which is very impressive.

    Janis Martin sings two songs from Hindemith’s Drei Gesänge op.9 here. The songs are “Meine Nächte sind heiser zerschrien” (text by Ernst Wilhelm Lotz), and “Weltende” (text by Else Lasker-Schüler).

  • Irene Dalis Has Passed Away

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    Above: Irene Dalis as Herodias in SALOME

    Another of my great idols from my early years of opera-going has passed away: Irene Dalis – who, after a long singing career went on to run Opera San Jose – has died at the age of 89.

    In 2007, I wrote an appreciation of Dalis for my blog and a few months afterward she either found it or it was pointed out to her, and she sent me a lovely note of thanks. I still have the Christmas cards she used to send me back in the ’60s and ’70s when she was singing at The Met.

  • Irene Dalis as Kundry

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    Irene Dalis, a particular favorite of mine in my formative first decade of opera-going, made only one commercially-released recording during her distinguished career – and even this derived from a live performance: PARSIFAL from the 1962 Bayreuth Festival. She seems never to have found her way into a recording studio (though there is supposedly a set of CARMEN highlights recorded by her in German…which I can’t seem to locate); some of her Met broadcasts have now been issued on the Sony label.

    The Philips-label release of the Bayreuth ’62 PARSIFAL is a highly-regarded recording; the ‘Bayreuth Sound’ has been well-captured and the performance under Hans Knappertsbusch is overall very impressive. However, I’ve never felt that this particular performance of Kundry was representative of Irene Dalis’s finest work. So I was happy to receive from Dmitry a copy of Act II from the following year’s (1963) Bayreuth Festival which is now available at Opera Depot.

    To my ears, Irene seems far more herself vocally in this ’63 Kundry than she did the previous Summer. She sings a great deal of the role piano, beautifully supported by Knappertsbusch. This gives her interpretation a mysterious sense of intimacy; after the kiss (marvelously underscored by Kna and the orchestra) the tide begins to turn against Kundry. Irene’s colorful voicing of the character’s desperation and – later – fury makes for an exciting dramatic build-up in the final minutes of the Act. Traces of tension in some of her upper notes are evident, but her intense focus on Kundry’s psychological conflict propels the singer thru any thorny moments with success. Throughout, Knappertsbusch’s pacing is spot-on: ever forward-moving but not shirking either the sensual or spiritual aspects of the music. Wolfgang Windgassen is on fine form here, bringing firm lyricism and then steely power to the music of Parsifal’s emotional evolution. Gustav Neidlinger, Solti’s Alberich in the famous London/Decca RING, is a commandingly malevolent Klingsor.