A series of great orchestral and song recordings:

Supreme FRENCH SOPRANO Lily Pons, beloved by the US public from her Metropolitan Opera and radio performances,

Here in a rarely heard bird song aria from Gretry's Zemire et Azor

LA FAUVETTE AVEC SES PETITS - The Warbler and its youngs 1&2

with a great uncredited Flute solo

Andre Kostelanetz Boston Symphony Orchestra Symphony Hall
Boston, MA, U.S.A.


Zémire et Azor  is an opéra comique in four acts by the Belgian composer André Grétry, The opera includes the famous coloratura display piece La Fauvette, sung here by Pons, in which the soprano imitates birdsong.

From the concert repertoire of famed coloratura soprano Lily Pons.
Drawn from the original collections prepared by Frank La Forge, renowned coach and accompanist, who collaborated with Miss Pons on innumerable occasions, this one volume collection provides  stunning concert pieces in French included Frank La Forge's meticulous notation of Miss Pons' optional high notes and cadenzas, a remarkable documentation of a style and period of singing of great historical importance.


Orig Issue British Columbia 12"

Condition:

EXCELLENT close to PRISTINE, plays very quiet faint crackle
A SUPERB COPY

Lily Pons (April 12, 1898 – February 13, 1976) was a French-American coloratura soprano.

Biography
Born as Alice "Lili" Joséphine Pons in Draguignan near Cannes, Pons first studied piano at the Paris Conservatory, winning the First Prize at the age of 15. At the onset of World War I in 1914, she moved with her mother and younger sister Juliette (born 22 December 1902) to Cannes, where she played piano and sang for soldiers at receptions given in support of the French troops and at the famous Hotel Carlton that had been transformed into a hospital, and where her mother, Marie Pons, worked as a volunteer nurse orderly. In 1925, encouraged by soprano Dyna Beumer, she started taking singing lessons from Alberto de Gorostiaga in Paris.

She successfully made her operatic debut in the title role of Léo Delibes' Lakmé at Mulhouse in 1928 and went on to sing several coloratura roles in French provincial opera houses.

[edit] Career
She was discovered by the dramatic tenor/impresario Giovanni Zenatello, who took her to New York where she auditioned for Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera.The Met needed a star coloratura after the retirement of Amelita Galli-Curci in January 1930. On January 3, 1931, Pons, unknown in the U.S., made an unheralded Met debut as Lucia in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and on that occasion the spelling of her first name was changed to "Lily". Against all odds, her performance received tremendous acclaim. She became a star overnight and inherited most of Galli-Curci's important coloratura roles. She also signed a recording contract with RCA Victor Records.

Pons was a principal soprano at the Met for thirty years, appearing 300 times in ten roles from 1931 until 1960. Her most frequent performances were as Lucia (93 performances), Lakmé (50 performances), Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto (49 performances), and Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville (33 performances).

In 1944 during World War II, Pons canceled her fall and winter season in New York and instead toured with the USO, entertaining troops with her singing. Her husband Andre Kostelanetz directed a band composed of American soldiers as accompaniment to her voice. The pair performed at military bases in North Africa, Italy, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, India and Burma in 1944.[1] In places, the heat of the sun at the outdoor performances was so overbearing that Pons, always wearing a strapless evening gown, held wet towels to her head between numbers.[2] In 1945, the tour continued through China, Belgium, France and Germany—a performance near the front lines.[3] Returning home, she toured the U.S., breaking attendance records in cities such as Milwaukee at which 30,000 attended her performance on July 20, 1945. Pons also played Mexico City in July, directed by Gaetano Merola.[4]

Other roles in her repertoire included Olympia in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffman, Philine in Ambroise Thomas's Mignon, Amina in Bellini's La Sonnambula, Marie in Donizetti's The Daughter of the Regiment, the title role in Delibes' Lakmé, the Queen in Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel, and the title role in Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix, (a role she sang in the opera's Met premiere on March 1, 1934). The last major new role Lily Pons performed (she had actually learned the role during her first season at The Met) was Violetta in Traviata, which she sang at the San Francisco Opera. One other role Lily Pons learned, but decided not to sing despite the fact she was French, was Melisande in Debussy's opera "Pelleas et Melisande." The reason, as she confided in a later interview, was twofold: first, because she felt the soprano, Bidu Sayao, owned the role; and second, because the tessitura lay mainly in the middle register of the soprano voice rather than in the higher register. In her last performance at the Met, on December 14, 1960, she sang "Caro nome" from Rigoletto as part of a gala performance.

She also made guest appearances at the Opéra Garnier in Paris, Covent Garden in London, La Monnaie in Brussels, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Chicago Opera and the San Francisco Opera. After her Met farewell, she continued to sing concerts until 1973.