She looked slim and beautiful in new costumes-never mind that they befitted a princess more than a slave girl.

Price loomed proudly in the middle of this orgy of operatic pretension. John Macurdy was a stolid, unresonant Ramfis. Simon Estes, at 45 the baby of the cast, brought much dignity but not-so-much vocal amplitude to the stances of Aida’s father. James McCracken, 58, reappeared as a heroic, overstuffed, vocally threadbare Radames who could barely negotiate “Celeste Aida.” Fiorenza Cossotto presented a big-voiced, rough-voiced Amneris who was strained by the high climaxes. This concert-in-costume, sensitively conducted by James Levine, offered a cast dominated by veterans. It documented a tired rehash of an 8-year-old production in which John Dexter reduced the protagonists to singing statues who adorn the stark and silly unit set of David Reppa. In fact, this “Live From the Met” relay as seen on KCET and heard via stereo simulcast on KUSC, was not very lively. It was not, by many means, an ideal performance of Verdi’s opera. It was a sentimental occasion, in some ways a historic occasion and, thanks to Public Broadcasting, the nation could watch. And it was as Aida that Price, a youthful 57, bade farewell to opera in general and to the Met in particular Thursday night.

But Price set and sustained standards that made her a worthy, logical and utterly independent heir to the repertory of Rosa Ponselle and Zinka Milanov.Ī central challenge in that repertory, of course, is the role of Verdi’s Aida. Her acting, once passionately uninhibited, often became a matter of striking poses. She has encountered some vocal difficulties and suffered some casting mistakes. The Met finally got on her bandwagon-it really wasn’t vice-versa-with an “Il Trovatore” in 1961.ĭuring the intervening years, she has appeared in what may be our leading opera house less often than one might have wished. Important engagements followed in Chicago, Vienna, Verona, Milan, London and Salzburg. premiere of Poulenc’s “Dialogues des Carmelites.” NBC chose her for a televised Tosca in 1955 and two years later San Francisco introduced her as Mme. In 1952 Virgil Thomson drafted her for “Four Saints in Three Acts.” Soon thereafter she became an irresistible Bess in performances of Gershwin’s opera from New York to Moscow. The young woman from Laurel, Miss., first attracted attention singing Mistress Ford in a student “Falstaff” at Juilliard.

Aida by leontyne price