Mario Lanza Live at the Hollywood Bowl: Historical Recordings (1947 & 1951) is a 2000
CD, released by the Gala label (GL 311), includes the six selections that
tenorMario Lanza sang at his first
Hollywood Bowl concert on August 27, 1947.[1] This is the performance that first brought Lanza to the attention of Hollywood, and shortly afterwards he was signed to a seven-year film contract with MGM. Included from the performance at the Bowl are six
arias, three of them in duet with soprano
Frances Yeend.
Eugene Ormandy conducts the
Hollywood Bowl Orchestra for these performances.
Reviewing the concert in the Los Angeles Examiner, Ernest Lonsdale wrote that, "Mario Lanza could have taken the Bowl with him. [His] voice is rich, full, warm and ringing. He has expression, emotion and good pronunciation. His operatic potentialities, if he works hard for a few more years, are unmistakably great."
In addition to the six classical selections from the Bowl, this album included fourteen recordings from The Mario Lanza Show radio broadcasts. These songs were introduced by Mario Lanza and his regular announcer, Bill Baldwin. They include three Neapolitan songs, his million-selling hits, several of his evergreen popular songs, and the aria "O paradiso".
Ray Sinatra served as conductor on these radio broadcasts taped between June and September 1951.[2]
^McCants, Clyde T. (2004). American Opera Singers and Their Recordings: Critical Commentaries and Discographies. McFarland. p. 134.
ISBN9780786419524. BMG/RCA 09026-60877-2. Mario Lanza: Live at the Hollywood Bowl. Gala GL 311 (1947, 1951)
^Mario Lanza, Mario Lanza Live at the Hollywood Bowl: Historical Recordings (1947 & 1951), 2000, CD booklet notes
Further reading
Armando Cesari. Mario Lanza: An American Tragedy (Fort Worth: Baskerville 2004).