For the 2021 holiday season, I'm posting a series of festive concert waltzes for coloratura soprano through New Year's Eve -- including this Patrice Munsel triple-header on Christmas day.
THE SONGBIRD: Patrice Munsel (1925 - 2016) was the youngest singer to perform a principal role at The Met — she made her debut there as Philine in 1942 at age 18. She was born in Spokane, moving to New York City with her mother when she was 15 years old for voice studies. She sang 225 performances at The Met appearing regularly in the 1940s and 1950s (Rosina, Olympia, Gilda, Adele, Lucia, Queen of Shemekha, Juliette, Lakme, Adina, Zerlina, Musetta, Despina, and Perichole). She was featured on many radio and television broadcasts, including "The Bell Telephone Hour" and her own TV variety series in 1957. She starred as Nellie Melba in the 1953 musical bio-pic "Melba." These three Strauss waltzes were recorded in 1952 with Arthur Fiedler conducting. The English lyrics are by Olga Paul.
THE MUSIC: Johann Strauss II was the son of Johann Strauss, and brother to Josef Strauss and Eduard Strauss. All were Viennese composers in the 19th century who specialized in sophisticated waltzes and light music, but Johann II's music was (and remains) the most popular. He was known as "The Waltz King" in his time and most of the Viennese waltzes we hum now were composed by him -- not to mention his enormously successful and genre-defining operettas such as "Die Fledermaus." His waltz "Künstlerleben" (Artist's Life) was composed in 1867 and premiered so soon after "The Blue Danube" waltz that they were referred to as twins.
