September: Featured Classical Music

Rose Bampton
V1186. Songs by John Alden Carpenter; Arias from Atalanta, Alceste, Don Giovanni, La Cenerentola, Semiramide, Ernani, Aïda, Tosca, Hérodiade, La Damnation de Faust, L’Enfant Prodigue, Lohengrin & Tristan. (Austria) Preiser 89675, recorded 1932-46. $17.90

“…this is a timely and worthwhile tribute to a first-rate American soprano….The piano-accompanied ‘Care Selve’ offers suitably long phrasing and is among the best recordings of this magnificent Handel aria….[The Gluck arias] are sterling interpretations…. Donna Anna’s two great arias are sung in masterly fashion, and Bampton almost manages to convince us that the concluding passages of the glorious ‘Non mi dir’ are not incongruous.”

- Vivian A. Liff, AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE, Sept./Oct., 2007

“Rose Bampton, an American opera singer who switched from mezzo-soprano to soprano and sang leading roles in both ranges at the Metropolitan Opera….in January, 1940, she appeared at the Met as Aïda one Saturday and as Amneris a week later….died [21 Aug., 2007] in Bryn Mawr, PA. She was 99….By the time she married Wilfrid Pelletier, a conductor at the Met, in 1937 (he died in 1982)…[she] decided to return to the soprano repertory.”

- Allan Kozinn, THE NEW YORK TIMES, 23 Aug., 2007

Dido and Aeneas
OP1563. (Purcell), recorded 1952, w.Geraint Jones Cond. Mermaid Ensemble; Kirsten Flagstad, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Thomas Hemsley, Arda Mandikian, Sheila Rex, etc. (E.U.) Naxos 8.111264. Transfers by Mark Obert-Thorn. $17.90

Dido and Aeneas
OP1327. (Purcell), Live Performance, 1 Oct., 1951, Mermaid Theatre, London, w.Geraint Jones Cond. Kirsten Flagstad, Maggie Teyte, Thomas Hemsley, Edith Coates, Arda Mandikian, etc. (E.U.) Walhall 0186. Specially priced at $9.90

Dido and Aeneas
OP1566. (Purcell), recorded 11 Jan., 1951, w.Capdeville Cond. Genève Ensemble & Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; Irma Kolassi, Yvon le Marc’Hadour, Gisèle Vivarelli, Hugues Cuénod, Marguerite Pifteau, etc. (Switzerland) Cascavelle VEL 3107. $17.90

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