Leontyne Price!
Ms. Price is known for her performances of arias and concert recital performances by composers such as Verdi, Puccini, Bizet, and Mozart. And she has also appeared frequently in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and the Verdi Requiem. Her solo concerts also often featured lesser-known arias and excerpts, including selections from Barber’s Anthony and Cleopatra and The Songs of the Rose of Sharon by John La Montaine.
In the past, Ms. Price gave annual recitals throughout North America and was also heard regularly in Europe, being a special favorite at the Salzburg Festival. Her recital repertoire was extensive, ranging from the songs of Poulenc, to traditional spirituals.
This recording is a 5 CD collection of Ms. Price previous recording. It provides an opportunity to obtain a great deal of her wonderful music with a single purchase.
Leontyne Price’s voice was always known for its great beauty. She had a wonderful feeling for the grand expressiveness of the long phrases of Verdi, and her technique allowed her to encompass all of the difficulties of roles such as Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Her lower register had a dark quality that was warm and unusually beautiful. Most of her important operatic roles were recorded by RCA, but only a small fraction of her recital repertoire found its way onto disc. Leontyne Price will always be remembered as one of the greatest Verdi sopranos of the twentieth century.
In October 2001, at age 74, Price was asked to come out of retirement and sing in a memorial concert in Carnegie Hall after the September 11 attacks. With James Levine at the piano, she sang a favorite spiritual, “This Little Light of Mine”.
Here she is, singing the Verdi Requiem with Herbert von Karajan and the Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala in Milan
!!!!!!great