This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(July 2023) |
Mario! Lanza at His Best | |
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Compilation album by | |
Released | 1995 |
Recorded | 1958–1959 |
Genre | Opera, Neapolitan and Italian songs, classical |
Label | RCA Victor |
Mario! Lanza At His Best is a CD released by RCA Victor in 1995, and consists of two original albums recorded by tenor Mario Lanza. These are: the Neapolitan songs album Mario!, recorded in December 1958, and The Vagabond King , recorded in July 1959. The Mario! album has been singled out for special praise, with its star conductor Franco Ferrara of Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia later hailing Lanza's singing on the disc as "vocally extraordinary...a Caruso-type voice." Lanza's first studio album in stereo, the Mario! selections include the Neapolitan songs "Voce 'e Notte," "Canta Pe' Me," "'Na Sera 'e Maggio," and "Passione." The arrangements were created by Carlo Savina and Ennio Morricone.
The Vagabond King, an operetta by Rudolf Friml, was recorded three months before Mario Lanza's death in October 1959. The selections include "Love Me Tonight," "Nocturne," "Only a Rose," and the "Drinking Song." Lanza is accompanied on several songs by the soprano Judith Raskin, who recorded her contributions a year later in New York. The conductor was Constantine Callinicos.
Note: In February 2006, this album was reissued by RCA in the sonically superior SACD format. This new CD can be played on both SACD players and conventional CD players.
The Student Prince is an operetta in a prologue and four acts with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Dorothy Donnelly. It is based on Wilhelm Meyer-Förster's play Old Heidelberg. The piece has a score with some of Romberg's most enduring and beautiful tunes, including "Golden Days", "Drinking Song", "Deep in My Heart, Dear", "Just We Two" and "Serenade". The plot has elements of melodrama but lacks the swashbuckling style common to Romberg's other works.
Mario Lanza Live at the Hollywood Bowl: Historical Recordings is a 2000 CD, released by the Gala label, includes the six selections that tenor Mario Lanza sang at his first Hollywood Bowl concert on August 27, 1947. This is the performance that first brought Lanza to the attention of Hollywood, and shortly afterwards he was signed to a seven-year film contract with MGM. Included from the performance at the Bowl are six arias, three of them in duet with soprano Frances Yeend. Eugene Ormandy conducts the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra for these performances.
Mario Lanza Sings Songs from The Student Prince and The Desert Song is a 1989 compilation album by Mario Lanza.
Christmas Hymns and Carols/You Do Something To Me is a "twofer" disc released in 2004 by the Collectibles label under licence to BMG. It incorporates two original Mario Lanza RCA Camden compilation LPs: Christmas Hymns and Carols and You Do Something To Me.
"Santa Lucia" is a traditional Neapolitan song. It was translated by Teodoro Cottrau (1827–1879) into Italian and published by the Cottrau firm, as a barcarola, in Naples in 1849. Cottrau translated it from Neapolitan into Italian during the first stage of the Italian unification. Significantly, it is the first Neapolitan song to be translated to Italian lyrics. Its transcriber, who is often miscredited as its composer, was the son of the French-born Italian composer and collector of songs Guillaume Louis Cottrau (1797–1847). Various sources credit A. Longo with the music, 1835.
Eleanor Steber was an American operatic soprano. Steber is noted as one of the first major opera stars to have achieved the highest success with training and a career based in the United States.
Canzone napoletana, sometimes referred to as Neapolitan song, is a generic term for a traditional form of music sung in the Neapolitan language, ordinarily for the male voice singing solo, although well represented by female soloists as well, and expressed in familiar genres such as the love song and serenade. Many of the songs are about the nostalgic longing for Naples as it once was. The genre consists of a large body of composed popular music—such songs as "'O sole mio"; "Torna a Surriento"; "Funiculì, Funiculà"; "Santa Lucia" and others.
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Fiorella Mannoia is an Italian singer, songwriter, and actress.
Judith Raskin was an American lyric soprano, renowned for her fine voice as well as her acting.
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"Some Day" is a song, with music by Rudolf Friml and words by Brian Hooker, originally published in 1925. It was included in Friml's operetta The Vagabond King, sung by Carolyn Thomson in the role of Katherine de Vaucelles.
"Santa Lucia Luntana" is a Neapolitan song written by E. A. Mario in 1919. The song is very popular in the repertoire of many singers. Mario Lanza ; Luciano Pavarotti [The Best, 2005]; and Russell Watson recorded notable versions. Italian-American tenor Sergio Franchi covered it in 1963 on his RCA Victor Red Seal album, Our Man From Italy. Also recorded by Mario Frangoulis in his CD "Passione - Mario sings Mario", recorded in 2007 with the Ossipov National Orchestra of Russia, with Vladimir Ponkin as the conductor.
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The following is a discography of original albums and singles released by American singer Mario Lanza.
Elio Cesari, known by his stage name of Tony Renis, is an Italian singer, composer, music producer and film actor.
Rosa Balistreri was an Italian singer and musician. Her hoarse voice charged with melancholy and strong personality made her a Sicilian icon of the twentieth century, much like the writer Leonardo Sciascia, the poet Ignazio Buttitta and the painter Renato Guttuso, who counted all three among her admirers.
Cesari, Armando. Mario Lanza: An American Tragedy. (Fort Worth: Baskerville 2004)