Mezzo Elena Obraztsova has died

Gramophone Mon 12th January 2015

Born July 7, 1939; Died January 12, 2015

The Russian mezzo-soprano Elena Obraztsova has died at the age of 75.

Obraztsova became a soloist at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1964 and went on to appear at the Met, La Scala and Covent Garden. She made several notable recordings, frequently alongside Plácido Domingo, perhaps most famously starring in Franco Zeffirelli's staging of Carmen at La Scala opposite Domingo's Don Jose with Carlos Kleiber conducting (a recording still available on DVD).

Other notable recordings include Amneris in Verdi's Aida from La Scala with Claudio Abbado on the podium, Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana again opposite Domingo on DG DVD with Georges Prêtre, Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila for DG in Paris with Barenboim and Massenet's Werther for DG with Riccardo Chailly.

Obrazstova's voice was described by John Steane (Gramophone, July 1978) as 'large, forward and challenging'. This 'challenging' quality sometimes failed to translate to her recordings. For instance, Alan Blyth said of her appearance in Samson et Dalila: 'She is somewhat too much of the devil rather than the seductress. Besides, her line in her important solos is often bumpy, the registers never integrated.' And Richard Fairman said of her turn in the Covent Garden Luisa Miller with Maazel: 'Obraztsova's thick-voiced Federica is a liability'.

But sometimes, as in her Azucena in Karajan's Verdi Il trovatore, alongside Leontyne Price and Franco Bonisolli, she could be magnificent. Hilary Finch wrote in Gramophone: 'The sheer concentration she brings to the character's complexity through every densely focused register of her voice is rare indeed: in shading and grading every line is archetypal Verdian style, she creates a vividly potent scena in her every aria. '

Georges Bizet
CARMEN

Carmen -- Elena Obraztsova
Don José -- Plácido Domingo
Escamillo -- Yuri Mazurok
Micaëla -- Isobel Buchanan
Frasquita -- Cheryl Kanfoush
Mercédès -- Axelle Gall
Zuniga -- Kurt Rydl
Moralès -- Hans Helm
Remendado -- Heinz Zednik
Dancaïre -- Paul Wolfrum

Vienna State Opera Ballet
Vienna Boys' Choir
Vienna State Opera Chorus and Orchestra
(chorus master: Norbert Balatsch)
Carlos Kleiber, conductor

Franco Zeffirelli, stage director and set designer
Leo Bei, costume designer
Rafael de Cordova, choreographer

Recorded live from the Vienna State Opera, 1978

http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.a...

LINK:
https://youtu.be/8RZ_8c2Zqbc

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-music-news/mezzo-elena-obraztsova-has-died