RSS News Feed
Facebook
del.icio.us
Google
My Yahoo!

A Clutch of Sopranos

Mary Ellyn Hutton
Posted: Oct 16, 2009 - 4:19:26 PM in news_2009

Soprano Emily Pulley

Here's a list for you:

Glinka, "Ruslan and Ludmilla" Overture. Verdi, "Ah fors'e lui and Sempre Libera" from "La Traviata." Mozart, "Der Hölle Rache" from "The Magic Flute." Puccini, "Chi il bel sogno di Doretta" from "La Rondine." Bizet, "Aragonaise," "Habanera" and "Seguidilla" from "Carmen." Donizetti, "O luce di quest anima" from "Linda di Chamounix. " Puccini, "O mio babbino caro" from "Gianni Schicchi." Wagner, "Arrival of the Guests" from "Tannhäuser." Richard Strauss, "Hab's mir's gelobt" from "Der Rosenkavalier." Tchaikovsky, "Polonaise" from "Eugene Onegin." Dvorak, "Song to the Moon" from "Rusalka." Gounod, "Ah! Je Veux Vivre" from "Romeo and Juliet." Korngold, "Marietta's Lied" from "Die Todt Stadt." Verdi, O don fatale" from "Don Carlo." Mascagni, Intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana." Leo Delibes, "Viens Mallika" from "Lakme." Franz Lehar, "Meine Lippen sie küssen so heiss'" from "Giuditta." Bernstein, "Glitter & Be Gay" from "Candide" and "Somewhere" from "West Side Story." Tessori/Scanlon, "The Girl in 14G." Bernstein, "I Feel Pretty" from "West Side Story." Rodgers, "I Enjoy Being a Girl" from "Flower Drum Song."

If that doesn't tickle your ears, nothing will, and you can hear all of it performed by a fab four sopranos and the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra conducted by music director James R. Cassidy at 8 p.m. tonight and Saturday (Oct. 16 and 17) in the new Francis K. Carlisle Performing Arts Cente at Notre Dame Academy in Park Hills, Kentucky.
   The sopranos, all internationally known, come in three "flavors:" coloratura, mezzo and a double dip of lyric.
   The coloratura is Heather Buck. Stacey Rishoi is the mezzo. Their lyric sisters are Audrey Luna and Emily Pulley.
   Whatsa lyric soprano?
   First of all, what's a soprano?
   A soprano is the highest female voice and has three basic subdivisions:
   Coloratura, the highest and most flexible. The coloratura soprano's Mount Everest is the Queen of the Night in Mozart's "The Magic Flute."
   Dramatic, lower and heavier, with the power and endurance to sing over a large orchestra for extended periods of time (think Wagner).
   Lyric, the ones in between, with the golden voices so beloved of audiences and opera composers like Puccini and Verdi. Roles (many) include Mimi in "La Boheme" and Violetta in "La Traviata."
   A mezzo-soprano (Italian for "half" or "middle") is a lower-voiced soprano. Mezzos can be coloratura, lyric and dramatic, too, and there are all kinds of gradations like soubrette (light, sweet voices like Jeanette MacDonald and Julie Andrews of operetta and musical theater fame), spinto (Italian for "pushed," i.e. voices tending toward the dramatic, like Madame Butterfly) and the lowest female voice of all, the contralto (the great Marian Anderson comes to mind here).

Audrey Luna

Luna will sing the "A fors' e lui" ("Ah, perhaps it is he") and "Sempre libera" ("Always free") from "La Traviata," "O mio babbino caro" ("O my dear papa") from Puccini's "Gianni Schicchi" and "Marietta's Lied" from Korngold's "Die Todt Stadt" ("The Dead City").
Lyric Emily Pulley will sing"Chi il bel sogno di Doretta" ("About Doretta's beautiful dream . . .") from Puccini's "La Rondine," "Song to the Moon" from Dvorak's "Rusalka," "Meine Lippen sie küssen so heiss") ("My lips, they kiss so passionately") from Franz Lehar's "Giuditta" and Kristin Chenowith's "The Girl in 14G."

Stacey Rishoi

Stacey Rishoi, a mezzo-soprano who trained at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, will perform the "Habanera" and "Seguidilla" from "Carmen," "O don fatale" ("O fatal gift") from Verdi's "Don Carlo" and "Somewhere" from "West Side Story."

Heather Buck

Coloratura Heather Buck will scale Mozart's Queen of the Night ("Die hölle rache," or "Hell's vengeance boils in my heart"), "Ah! Je veux vivre" ("Juliet's Waltz") from "Romeo and Juliet," "O luce di quest anima" ("O light that guides my soul") from Donizetti's "Linda di Chamounix," "Glitter and Be Gay" from Bernstein's "Candide," and she and Rishoi will sing "Viens mallika" ("The Flower Duet") from Leo Delibes' "Lakme."
   Rishoi, Luna and Pulley will sing "Hab's mir's gelobt" ("I promised myself to love him in the right way") from Richard Strauss' "Der Rosenkavalier" and the four with join with the KSO in the rousing final numbers, "I Feel Pretty" ("West Side Story") and "I Enjoy Being a Girl") "Flower Drum Song").
   The KSO will sprinkle orchestral excerpts over the program, including Glinka's zippy "Russlan and Ludmilla" Overture, "Aragonaise" from "Carmen," "Arrival of the Guests" from Wagner's "Tannhäuser," "Polonaise" from Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin," and the Intermezzo from Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana."
   Admission is $28 and $23, $18 for seniors, $10 for students at the door, call (859) 431-6216 or order online at www.kyso.org