Ewa Podles (RIP); "Oh patria! Di tanti palpiti"; TANCREDI; Gioachino Rossini

This channel is the re-establishment of previous channels that have been sadly terminated. ========================= Ewa Podles--contralto Hungarian State Opera Orchestra Pier Giorgio Morandi--conductor 1995 ============================= "Ewa Podles, a Rare Contralto With Sweeping Range, Dies at 71 ======================================= With her molten chest voice and commanding presence, Ms. Podles, a galvanizing Polish opera singer, developed a cult following. Ewa Podles, the Polish contralto whose darkly molten, three-octave-plus voice and commanding presence made her a favorite of opera connoisseurs, died on Friday in Warsaw. She was 71. Her death, in a hospice center, was confirmed by her stepdaughter, Ania Marchwinska, who said the cause was lung cancer. Aficionados embraced Ms. Podles (whose full name was pronounced AE-vuh PODE-lesh) not just for her exciting performances, but also for how unusual she was: True contraltos — the lowest-lying female voice type, deeper than a mezzo-soprano — are hardly common. Developing the low chest register as much as the rest of the voice, a contralto is “like an alto in the lower range, like a soprano on top,” Ms. Podles told The New York Times in 1998. And she fit that bill: Though her tone was melancholically hooded and brooding, with a cavernous chest register, she also had the high notes and agility to excel at Handel and Rossini’s most demandingly florid roles. “It’s a very rare voice,” Ms. Podles said of her...