Operatic excellence
Today marks the death of one of the greatest composers in classical music – Giuseppe Verdi, who gave us La Traviata, Rigoletto, Aida and many other great operas. To celebrate his work, we give you the pick of our opera records:
Fastest time to conduct all 28 Verdi operas
Vincent La Selva, Artistic Director and Principle Conductor of the New York Grand Opera Company, has conducted in chronological order, the original versions of all 28 operas of Giuseppe Verdi since the first 'Viva, Verdi!' summer season was held in Central Park, New York, USA on 6 July 1994. The final opera was conducted on 1 August 2001.
Largest opera house
The Metropolitan Opera House at the Lincoln Center, New York City, USA, has a seating and standing room capacity of 4,065. The auditorium, which is 137 m. (451 ft.) deep, seats 3,800 and the stage measures 70 m. (230 ft.) wide and 45 m. (148 ft.) deep. It was completed in September 1966 at a cost of US$45.7 million (then £16.3 million).
Longest career as an opera singer
Danshi Toyotake (b. Yoshie Yokota, 1891–1989) of Hyogo, Japan sang ‘Musume Gidayu’ (traditional Japanese narrative) for 91 years from the age of seven. Her professional career spanned 81 years.
Longest opera
The longest of commonly performed opera is ‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg’ by (Wilhelm) Richard Wagner (1813–83) of Germany. A normal uncut version as performed by the Sadler's Wells company between 24 August and 19 September 1968 entailed 5 hr 15 min of music.
Oldest opera singer
Luo Pinchao (b. China, 19 June 1912), who began his singing career in 1930, continues to regularly perform Cantonese opera and celebrated his 93rd birthday and record-breaking career with a performance at the Guandong Cantonese Opera Grand Artistic Theatre, Guangzhou, China on 20 June 2004.
Youngest opera singer
Ginetta Gloria La Bianca (USA, 12 May 1934) sang the part of Gilda in ‘Rigoletto’ at Velletri, Italy, on 24 March 1950, aged 15 years 316 days. She appeared as Rosina in *The Barber of Seville* at the Teatro dell'Opera, Rome, Italy, on 8 May 1950, 45 days later.
28 January 2008