CARMELA PONSELLE (1887-1977) a tribute with live b'casts

Rosa Ponselle's older sister had a fine mezzo of remarkable quality. Unjustly forgotten and unrrated. Listen to her in live broadcasts of song and opera. Most of them were recorded in the mid-thirties. The Carmen goes back to 1951. (Thanks go to David Stein for identifying several numbers)
1. Memories
2. Come Back to Erin, Mavourneen
3. Love's Old Sweet Songs
4. Songs My Mother Taught Me
5. Song of Songs
6. One Night of Love
7. O Sole Mio
8. Mattinata
9. A Kiss in the Dark
10. When You're Away
11. Lover, Come Back to Me
12. Habanera
13. Plaisir d'Amour
14. O Bien Aimée
15. Alice, Where Art Thou?
16. Somewhere, a Voice Is Calling

[EmilyGloeggler]

A wonderful and underrated mezzo-soprano.

[turiddudegaetano]

What a fantastic collection! What a find! Many thanks to Charles Mintzer, Rudi van den Buick, Franz Meesters and Franz van Dijk. It is a genuine privilege to hear this collection of songs sung by Carmel Ponselle.
Again....MANY THANKS!

[Ruffiello]

Thanks for sharing this! Her recordings are hard to come by.

[mariopiernes]

Awesome, Out of this world, superlative!

[roykersey]

These tracks give a much better idea of Carmela's voice than the acoustic ones from the 20's. A very nicely registered voice with even a decent trill on Plaisir d'Amour. I still have trouble deciding if her voice was anywhere near the quality of her sister's. In Drake's centenary biography of Rosa, she remarks that she, Romano Romani and others were always urging Carmela to go to Europe to sing as a dramatic soprano. but she wouldn't and her agent, fearing a loss of commissions, discouraged her. So we'll never know what kind of career she might have had as a dramatic soprano or as a mezzo in Europe...lovely renditions here, tho'.

[mariopiernes]

Just heard of her today... I am afraid I have a new obsession...

[stephenhetzel]

What a marvelous voice. I read that ssje suffered from paralyzing.stage fright.

[nwdixieboy]

She's got a really good voice but her sister's voice is much more polished in my opinion. You can hear the family resemblance though

[liedersanger]

God is unfair. He creates a very good singer, and then makes her sister and singing partner twice as good.