Nuala Willis, witty contralto who ranged from Glyndebourne to Dustin Hoffman’s film Quartet She was a stalwart of the composer Jonathan Dove, appearing in his 2002 television opera about the death of ...

As buglers sound the solemn notes of taps and 21-gun salutes are fired, among those Americans who once sang patriotic tunes on Memorial Day was a San Diegan, the “world’s greatest contralto.” She was ...

Last week we scaled the heights of the highest vocal range, the soprano. Today, let's take one step down the vocal ladder. In the opera house, we tend to call them mezzo-sopranos, but there are many ...

Once they were everywhere, mainstays of all the choral societies in the land, rousing us to action or soothing us with maternal balm. But now the contralto only seems to exist in the realms of the old ...

Contralto Lili Chookasian, who sang with the Metropolitan Opera for 24 years, died Tuesday. The former Tenafly, N.J., resident was 90. Chookasian was a 41-year-old mother of three in March 1962 when ...

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