Testament: SBT21420
Anna Moffo - A Portrait of Manon / Great Love Duets
Massenet: Manon - excerpts
Puccini: Manon Lescaut - excerpts
Verdi: La traviata - excerpt
Puccini: Madama Butterfly - excerpts
Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor - excerpts
Puccini: La boheme - excerpt
Our Price: £22.95 (£19.53 ex VAT)
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 2
Genre: Opera
Artist(s): Anna Moffo, Robert Kerns, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Alberta Alberti, Maria Casula, Anna Di Stasio, Flaviano Labo, Manlio Rocchi, Mario Rinaudo, Enzo Titta, Richard Tucker, Cesare Valletti, Rosalind Elias, Carlo Bergonzi, Rca Italiana Opera Chorus And Orchestra, Orchestra Del Teatro Dell’opera Di Roma, Coro E Orchestra Del Teatro Dell’opera Di Roma
Conductor(s): Rene Leibowitz, Georges Pretre, Fernando Previtali, Erich Leinsdorf
Release Date: 30th June 2008
More Details on Anna Moffo - A Portrait of Manon / Great Love Duets
Anna Moffo was born of Italian parents in Wayne, Pennsylvania, on 27 June 1932, although some sources give the year as 1930 and others as 1935. After studying with Eufemia Giannini-Gregory at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, she went as a Fulbright scholar to the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, where her teachers were Luigi Ricci and Mercedes Llopart. She made her début at Spoleto in 1955 as Norina in Don Pasquale, and created a sensation at the Rome Opera the same year when she appeared there for the first time. She was immediately engaged by Italian television to play Cio-Cio-San in a production of Madama Butterfly, and subsequently appeared on Italian TV as Nannetta, Amina, Lucia di Lammermoor and Maria (La figlia del reggimento). In 1956 she sang Zerlina in Don Giovanni at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and in 1957 she was chosen by Herbert von Karajan to sing Nannetta in Falstaff at the Salzburg Festival. It was also in 1957 that she made her American début in Chicago, appearing as Mimì in La bohème.
On 14 November 1959 Moffo appeared for the first time at the Metropolitan as Violetta, a role she sang 80 times with the company. Her success was immediate and she appeared regularly in both the old and new houses throughout the 1960s and early 1970s in 18 major roles, including Pamina, Norina, Gilda, Luisa Miller, the four heroines of Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Juliette, Gounod’s Marguerite, Massenet’s Manon, Mélisande, Nedda, Adina, Liù and Lucia di Lammermoor. To many opera-lovers in the USA, she was quite simply the most beautiful diva of her era. She was certainly one of the most talented, possessing an appealing stage presence, a
lyric soprano voice of full, radiant tone and an impeccable coloratura technique, which she used with excellent musical taste.
After some 130 Met appearances in New York and a further 70 with the company on tour, her last opera performances in the house at Lincoln Center were in March 1976 as Violetta. She returned to the Met on 22 October 1983 to sing a duet with Robert Merrill in the
Centennial Gala, which was televised world-wide.
Extract from the booklet note © Tony Locantro, 2000
On 14 November 1959 Moffo appeared for the first time at the Metropolitan as Violetta, a role she sang 80 times with the company. Her success was immediate and she appeared regularly in both the old and new houses throughout the 1960s and early 1970s in 18 major roles, including Pamina, Norina, Gilda, Luisa Miller, the four heroines of Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Juliette, Gounod’s Marguerite, Massenet’s Manon, Mélisande, Nedda, Adina, Liù and Lucia di Lammermoor. To many opera-lovers in the USA, she was quite simply the most beautiful diva of her era. She was certainly one of the most talented, possessing an appealing stage presence, a
lyric soprano voice of full, radiant tone and an impeccable coloratura technique, which she used with excellent musical taste.
After some 130 Met appearances in New York and a further 70 with the company on tour, her last opera performances in the house at Lincoln Center were in March 1976 as Violetta. She returned to the Met on 22 October 1983 to sing a duet with Robert Merrill in the
Centennial Gala, which was televised world-wide.
Extract from the booklet note © Tony Locantro, 2000
