Скачать или смотреть Anna Christy is a vibrant Zerbinetta

THE SONGBIRD: Anna Christy was born in Chicago and raised in Pasadena. Christy is a graduate of Rice University and the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. She is the recipient of a Richard Tucker Music Foundation Career Grant, among many awards. Papagena was her operatic debut at the New York City Opera in 2000, and her Met debut in 2004. A sampling of roles she has sung includes Susanna, Blonde, Cleopatra, Cunegonde, Oscar, Gilda, Adele, Marzelline, Morgana, Zerbinetta, Olympia, and Lucia. Christy has appeared with companies in Santa Fe, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, Philadelphia, Colorado (Denver and Central City), Paris, Tokyo, Kyoto, Amsterdam, and London (both the Royal Opera House and the English National Opera).

THE MUSIC: Richard Strauss's opera "Ariadne auf Naxos" premiered twice. The first was in 1912 in Stuttgart where it was conceived as a short opera to accompany a new adaption of Moliere's play, "Le Bourgeois gentilhomme." This version was performed in other cities over the next year (Zurich, Munich, Prague, and London), but the play/opera hybrid concept proved ineffective (and way too long at over six hours). Working with his librettist/partner Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Strauss refashioned the opera as a stand-alone work with a newly added prologue, which premiered to success in Vienna in 1916. This version of the opera was quickly embraced by critics, artists, and the public -- it has since been recorded commercially many times and is performed regularly around the world. Zerbinetta's grand aria "Grossmächtige Prinzessin" is arguably the most daunting coloratura showpiece ever written. It's not just long at about 12 minutes; it doesn't merely contain a full armada of coloratura vocal acrobatics (trills, cadenzas, scales, filigree, high notes, wide leaps, and so on); it's not just the freewheeling harmonic structures -- no, this scene demands a level of virtuosic musicianship and theatrical flair that is simply unmatched. Zerbinetta is a coloratura soubrette on steroids! In this scene and role, Strauss invented an entirely new musical language to exploit the unique glories of the coloratura soprano voice. He revisited this proprietary mode of highly gymnastic and chromatic vocalism a few other times afterwards: in the art song "Amor" (1918), with Fiakermilli in "Arabella" (1933), and for Aminta in "Die schweigsame Frau" (1935).