Mefistofele is an opera in a prologue and five acts, later reduced to four acts and an epilogue, the only completed opera with music by the Italian composer-librettist Arrigo Boito. The opera was given its premiere on 5 March 1868 at La Scala, Milan, under the baton of the composer, despite his lack of experience and skill as a conductor.
A mezzo-soprano or mezzo (; Italian:[ˌmɛddzosoˈpraːno]; meaning "half soprano") 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.
A coloratura soprano is a type of operatic soprano voice that specializes in music that is distinguished by agile runs, leaps and trills.
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.
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.
Ferruccio Furlanetto is an Italian bass. His professional debut was in 1974 in Lonigo, he debuted at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1979, in a production of Verdi's Macbeth, conducted by Claudio Abbado. He has gone on to sing numerous roles, including both Don Giovanni and Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Philip II in Verdi's Don Carlos, Figaro in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Gremin in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Zaccaria in Verdi's Nabucco, Méphistophélès in Gounod's Faust, Orestes in Strauss' Elektra, Fiesco in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, the title role of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, as well as many other roles.
José Francisco Araiza Andrade, is a Mexican operatic tenor and lied singer who has sung as soloist in leading concert halls and in leading tenor operatic roles in the major opera houses of Europe and North America during the course of a lengthy career. Born in Mexico City, he studied singing at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música de México and later in Germany, with Mozartian tenor Richard Holm, and lieder interpretation with Erik Werba. He made his operatic debut in 1970 in Mexico City as First Prisoner in Beethoven's Fidelio. Araiza initially came to international prominence singing in Mozart and Rossini operas, but in the 1980s broadened his repertoire to include Italian and French lyric tenor roles and Wagnerian roles such as Lohengrin and Walther von Stolzing. He was made a Kammersänger of the Vienna State Opera in 1988. Now retired from the opera stage, he teaches singing and serves on the juries of several international singing competitions.
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.
Erwin Schrott is an Uraguayan operatic bass-baritone, particularly known for the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni.
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.
Carmela Remigio is an Italian operatic soprano.
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.
Krisztián Cser is a Hungarian operatic and concert singer (bass) and physicist, the soloist of the Hungarian State Opera.
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.
