THE TEN GREATEST SOPRANOS Heard Live 7 Victoria de los Angeles

This is a selection of videos of the Ten Greatest Sopranos I had the joy to hear in live performance. The order is simply when I first heard them. They are all from my impressionable student days, chosen because every one of these great singers gave performances as vivid to me now as when I first heard them. Every one was more than just a voice and they all sang, in their very different ways, so as to move, excite and enchant.

Victoria de los Angeles was a very popular visitor to Covent Garden. I first heard her exquisite Butterfly on the radio. Then in 1960 I heard her live as a delicious Manon. De los Angeles was beguiling and vivacious, a fluent, persuasive actress as well as a consummate singer. Hers was a lovely, rounded and beautifully tuned voice as sweet and charming as her features. She gave a gloriously sung, genuinely touching account of the capricious, tragic heroine. One of my most cherished memories.


Later in the year, standing at the very back of the Covent Garden Gallery, I heard her delightful Mimi, thinking the while that the scenery was from the original 1898 production which Puccini might have seen. In those very sets Melba and Caruso sang and now, here, was another splendid singer gracing "the great tradition".

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[CharlotteinWeimar]

If you heard this great singer live, please post a description.

[Maripudelmonaco]

RENATA TEBALDI !!!

[operalament]

I too heard her in recital in new york im guessing the year perhaps 78. I for one think hearing a singer in recital is the best way to hear them. for every hunderd singers who can perform in an opera production , there are only a few who can pull of a good recital. I always found her to be an immencely satisfying performer.

[pellmeli]

Only in recital, but it remains a highlight of my concert going. It was as if she had invited you into her living room-and Carnegie Hall is a pretty big "living room"!