Elisabeth Rethberg et Giuseppe de Luca Aida Ciel! mio padre Gramophone DB 1455

Elisabeth Rethberg et Giuseppe de Luca - Aida - Ciel! mio padre - Gramophone DB 1455 enregistré le 20 janvier 1930
The German soprano Elisabeth Rethberg (22 September 1894 - 6 June 1976) was an opera singer of international repute active from the period of the First World War through to the early 1940s. (Her chief contemporary rival at the New York Metropolitan Opera was the Italian-American soprano Rosa Ponselle, who possessed a bigger and darker-hued voice.)
While she did not break any new ground dramatically or vocally, Rethberg was just sung in Italian or German. Her singing included Wagnerian soprano parts such as Sieglinde, Eva, Elsa, and Elisabeth.
Rethberg was born Elisabeth Sättler in Schwarzenberg. She studied at the conservatory in Dresden with Otto Watrin, and she made her operatic debut in that German city opposite Richard Tauber on 16 June 1915 as Arsena in the operetta Der Zigeunerbaron by Johann Strauss II. Rethberg sang with the Dresden Opera until 1922. In that year, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Aida in Giuseppe Verdi's opera of that name. She moved to the USA and remained with the Metropolitan for 20 seasons, singing 30 roles on stage and in the recording studio, opposite tenor colleagues such as Beniamino Gigli, Giovanni Martinelli and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi. She also was engaged by London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where she sang in 1925 and in 1934-1939. The Salzburg Festival in Austria heard her too, as did audiences in Milan and elsewhere in Europe. Rethberg returned often to Dresden where, in 1928, she created the title role in Richard Strauss's Die ägyptische Helena.
During the latter half of the 1930s, Rethberg's voice lost some of its bloom, owing perhaps to the repeated singing of Aida and other heavy roles. She retired from the stage in 1942.
Source : Wikipedia
Giuseppe De Luca (25 December 1876 - 26 August 1950), was an Italian baritone who achieved his greatest triumphs at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. He notably created roles in the world premieres of two operas by Giacomo Puccini: Sharpless in Madama Butterfly (at La Scala, Milan, 1904) and the title role in Gianni Schicchi (Metropolitan Opera, 1918).
De Luca was born on Christmas Day, 25 December 1876 in Rome, the son of a blacksmith. He sang in church choirs as a boy. After his voice broke, a wealthy patron paid for him to have singing lessons at the Rome Conservatory, where he studied with two top-class pedagogues, Venceslao Persichini (who also taught De Luca's fellow baritone stars Mattia Battistini and Titta Ruffo) and Antonio Cotogni. He made his operatic debut at Piacenza in 1897, singing Valentin in Gounod's Faust. His debut proved a success and he was invited to sing at a string of more important venues.
He appeared at Italy's foremost opera house, La Scala, Milan, from 1902 to 1910, and made his London debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1907.
Subsequently, De Luca moved to America where he became a leading baritone at the Metropolitan Opera for 20 years, from 1915 to 1935. (He returned briefly to the Met in 1939-1940.) His first appearance at that house was on 25 November 1915, as Figaro in The Barber of Seville with Frieda Hempel as Rosina and Giacomo Damacco as Count Almaviva, with Gaetano Bavagnoli conducting.
After his retirement, he taught voice at the Juilliard School. He died at Columbus Hospital in New York City on 26 August 1950 at the age of 73.
Source : Wikipedia

[@robcardinal8430]

78tours- 78 rpm opera......in spite of the faded recording quality on this now 94 year old recording.....Rethberg and DeLuca shine...as the great singing actors they were!

[@MrSkylark1]

SUPERIOR SINGING FROM DE LUCA AND RETHBERG. THERE IS NO ONE, SOPRANO OR BARITONE WHO CAN SING LIKE THIS AT THE METROPOLITAN NOW, INDEED SINCE THESE ARTISTS PERFORMED.