New Voices at the Met

Along with plans to exchange its elegant but drafty old home for a modern theater at Manhattan's projected Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Metropolitan Opera is busy with another building program. Aside from the great names on its roster--Maria Callas. Victoria de los Angeles, Richard Tucker, Mario Del Monaco, Leonard Warren, Cesare Siepi--it is adding to its solid second rank by bringing in exciting newcomers who, more than the established stars, are making this a memorable season. Some of the best of the new voices:

FLAVIANO LABO, 31, an Italian-born tenor whose clear, powerful singing more than makes up for his lack of height (under 5 ft. 5 in.). He made his successful Met debut as Alvaro in Forza del Destino, and his Edgardo in last week's Lucia di Lammermoor had the house cheering. His secure, robust voice approaches the stentorian singing of Mario Del Monaco, although darker and not so piercing.

NICOLAI GEDDA, 31. born in Stockholm of Russian-Swedish parents (his father was a baritone in the Don Cossack Chorus), did well in his Met debut as Faust, outdid himself as Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Anatol in Vanessa. Tall for a tenor--his pressagent, measuring with a basketball coach's rubber ruler, claims 6 ft. 3 in. --Gedda offers a clear, sweet voice that may lack warmth ("Champagne rather than Chianti," says one critic), but has strength and purity. His acting is intelligent, his pronunciation unusually correct for the opera stage; he is a linguist, speaks seven languages.

CARLO BERGONZI, 33, a thickset, muscular Italian tenor who paces the stage as he winds up for a big aria, is well worth hearing when he finally stands still and left loose. His voice is warm, strong and sure. Good tenors are never in plentiful supply; with Fellow Newcomers Labo and Gedda, Bergonzi makes the Met unusually rich in the tenor department.

MARIO SERENI, a 29-year-old Italian born lyric baritone, has been properly praised for his fine, resonant voice and roasted for wooden acting. As Lord Hepry Ashton in Lucia di Lammermoor this season, he sang well, was no more notable for oaken attitudes than many other performers in an art form that pays little heed to Stanislavsky. While the Met, with Robert Merrill and Warren, has enough starring baritones, Sereni will be useful in such important feature roles as Marcello (Boheme) and Silvio (Pagliacci).

ROSALIND ELIAS, 25, a dark-eyed mezzo-soprano, is slender enough to play the boy Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, provocative enough to goad her stage lovers convincingly to swordplay, as she did as Olga in Eugene Onegin. A Lebanese-American born in Lowell, Mass., she began singing the Metropolitan's smallest roles four years ago, rose to starring parts through a combination of good looks (she is the Met's youngest, prettiest leading singer) and a warm, full-timbered voice. Her latest success: Erika in Samuel Barber's Vanessa (TIME, Jan. 27). Although a good singer, she is not yet a great one, and her voice must gain weight and authority before she can conquer such big mezzo roles as Amneris (Aida) or the Princess Eboli (Don Carlo').

INGE BORKH, 36, a big-voiced, big-framed German soprano, sings brilliantly in such muscular roles as Elektra and Salome, overacts with boisterous Germanic abandon. Last week, in her Met debut, she acted a coarse-grained Salome. She danced enthusiastically, handled her voice intelligently and, in the final long soliloquy, sang with exquisite beauty.

GIORGIO Tozzi, 35, a tall (6 ft. 1 in.), big-shouldered Chicago-born bass, made his New York debut as Tarquinius in the 1949 Broadway production of Benjamin Britten's Rape of Lucretia, but after the short-lived Rape closed, Tozzi wound up a penniless student in Italy (he recalls being so weak from hunger that he could climb to his third-floor room only once a day). Since then, he has sung widely in Europe, last summer toured as Emile de Becque with Mary Martin in South Pacific. A onetime baritone, Tozzi has a deep, warm voice in which much of the baritone quality persists, also has fine stage presence and plenty of humor (as he demonstrated as the Old Doctor in Vanessa). Tozzi ought to make a good Don Giovanni in time.

MARY CURTIS-VERNA, 30, a tall (5 ft. 7 in.), Massachusetts-born dramatic soprano, has become the Metropolitan's most highly publicized relief aria-pitcher in the year since she joined the company. Three times this season she substituted for ailing divas in starring roles (once, on three hours' notice and without rehearsal, she sang Donna Anna when Eleanor Steber fell ill), while maintaining her own schedule of Toscas, Leonoras and Aidas. Unfortunately, there is more drama in her last-minute appearances offstage than on: her singing, often attractive enough, has little spark, often wins only polite applause. But she has unshatterable poise, knows how to act, makes intelligent use of a wide-ranging voice.

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