Arrigo Boito was an Italian librettist, composer, poet and critic whose only completed opera was Mefistofele. Among the operas for which he wrote the libretti are Giuseppe Verdi's monumental last two operas Otello and Falstaff as well as Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda.
A mezzo-soprano (Italian:[ˌmɛddzosoˈpraːno], lit. 'half soprano'), or mezzo ( MET-soh), is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above (i.e. A3–A5 in scientific pitch notation, where middle C = C4; 220–880 Hz). In the lower and upper extremes, some mezzo-sopranos may extend down to the F below middle C (F3, 175 Hz) and as high as "high C" (C6, 1047 Hz). The mezzo-soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura, lyric, and dramatic.
Nicolai Ghiaurov was a Bulgarian opera singer and one of the most famous basses of the postwar period. He was admired for his powerful, sumptuous voice, and was particularly associated with roles of Mussorgsky and Verdi. Ghiaurov married the Bulgarian pianist Zlatina Mishakova in 1956 and Italian soprano Mirella Freni in 1978, and the two singers frequently performed together. They lived in Modena until Ghiaurov's death in 2004 of a heart attack.
The Canadian Opera Company (COC) is an opera company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest opera company in Canada and one of the largest producers of opera in North America. The COC performs at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, which was purpose-built for opera and ballet and is shared with the National Ballet of Canada. For forty years until April 2006, the COC had performed at the O'Keefe Centre.
June Anderson is a Grammy Award-winning American coloratura soprano. She is known for bel canto performances of Rossini, Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini.
Cheryl Studer is an American dramatic soprano who has sung at many of the world's foremost opera houses. Studer has performed more than eighty roles ranging from the dramatic repertoire to roles more commonly associated with lyric sopranos and coloratura sopranos, and, in her late stage, mezzo-sopranos. She is particularly known for her interpretations of the works of Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner.
Jozef Kundlák is a Slovak tenor.
Norman Treigle (né Adanelle Wilfred Treigle was an American operatic bass-baritone, who was acclaimed for his great abilities as a singing-actor, and specialized in roles that evoked villainy and terror.
Michael Devlin is an American opera singer who is internationally known as a bass-baritone and singing-actor.
Ruggero Raimondi is an Italian bass-baritone opera singer who has also appeared in motion pictures.
Susanne Marsee is an American mezzo-soprano of note, particularly acclaimed as a singing-actress.
Ramón Vargas is a Mexican operatic tenor. Since his debut in the early '90s, he has developed to become one of the most acclaimed tenors of the 21st century. Known for his most expressive and agile lyric tenor voice, he is especially successful in the bel canto repertoire.
Barbara Frittoli is an Italian operatic soprano, specializing in operas by Verdi and Mozart. She has sung leading roles in opera houses throughout Europe and in the United States, such as La Scala in Milan and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Her signature roles include Mimì in La bohème, the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Desdemona in Otello.
Beverly Wolff was an American mezzo-soprano who had an active career in concerts and operas from the early 1950s to the early 1980s. She performed a broad repertoire which encompassed operatic and concert works in many languages and from a variety of musical periods. She was a champion of new works, notably premiering compositions by Leonard Bernstein, Gian Carlo Menotti, Douglas Moore, and Ned Rorem among other American composers. She also performed in a number of rarely heard baroque operas by George Frideric Handel with the New York City Opera (NYCO), the Handel Society of New York, and at the Kennedy Center Handel Festivals.
A bass is a type of classical male singing voice and has the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a vocal range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C (i.e., E2–E4). Its tessitura, or comfortable range, is normally defined by the outermost lines of the bass clef. Categories of bass voices vary according to national style and classification system.
This list includes opera productions of the Opera Group and Opera Company of Boston from 1958 to 1990.
Ildàr Amìrovich Abdrazàkov is a Russian bass opera singer. Honoured Artist of Russia (2021).
Marina Rebeka is a Latvian soprano, active on both opera and concert stages. Associated with Violetta in Verdi's La traviata, she performs primarily in the 19th-century Italian and French repertoire, most notably works by Gioachino Rossini, in addition to Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni, another frequent role.
Alastair Miles is a British operatic and concert bass who has had an international career since the late 1980s.
Mika Kares is a Finnish operatic bass in opera and concert who made an international career. He was first based at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, and went on to the Savonlinna Opera Festival, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia, and the Seattle Opera, among others.
