SHERRILL MILNES - PROGRAM SIGNED 02/21/1975 CO-SIGNED BY: GIUSEPPE GIACOMINI, MIGUEL GOMEZ-MARTINEZ, MARITA NAPIER - HFSID 161337

SHERRILL EUSTACE MILNES, CO-SIGNED BY: MARITA NAPIER, MIGUEL GOMEZ-MARTINEZ, GIUSEPPE GIACOMINI
Program for the Feb. 21 performance of the Hamburg State Opera's performance of Verdi's Il Trovatore, signed by conductor Gomez-Martinez and singers Milnes, Napier and Giacomini. Milnes was il Conte de Luna, Napier was Leonora and a replacement performer and Giacomini was Manrico.
Program signed "Miguel A. Gomez Martinez" in blue ink, "Marita Napier" in blue ink, "Giuseppe Giacomini" in black ink and "Sherrill/Milnes" in black ink. B/w, 2 pages, 6½x9¼ (1 sheet front and verso). Program in untranslated German for the Hamburg State Opera's Feb. 21, 1975 performance of Verdi's Der Troubadour (Il Trovatore), conducted by Gomez-Martinez. Milnes was the Graf von Luna (il Conte de Luna), Napier was Leonora - replacing Marina Krilovici, who apparently became sick before the performance - and Giacomini was Manrico. MILNES, born in Downers Grove, Illinois in 1935, is an American baritone who has been associated with the New York Metropolitan Opera for three decades. Milnes showed great musical promise, but no operatic leanings, early in life, learning to play at least six instruments. He joined the Boston Opera Company in 1960, deuting there as Masetto in Mozart's Don Giovanni. Milnes's big break came in 1964, when he performed Valentine in Gounod's Faust at the New York Opera, the role he played for his 1965 Met debut. He made his European debut in 1964 as Figaro in Rossini's The Barber of Seville at the Teatro Nuovo in Milan. Milnes became an international star after singing Miller in Verdi's Luisa Miller in 1968. NAPIER (1939-2004, born Marita Jacobs in Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa) was a South African soprano. Napier first interests were ballet and piano, but switched to opera. She debuted in Handel's Xerxes in 1963. She also joined a vocal quartet around that time and, as someone else in the quartet was named Jacobs as well, she decided to change her last name to Jacobs to avoid confusion. She studied in Germany, while keeping up her choral singing, but soon landed parts in the Bielefeld opera house, where she had her European debuts. She went on to win a Grammy Award and perform leading roles in the Vienna State Opera, the New York Metropolitan Opera and the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. GOMEZ-MARTINEZ, born in 1949 in Granada, Spain, is a Spanish conductor. He showed musical promise at an early age, taking the entrance exam for the Real Conservatorio de Madris at the age of five and receiving a doctorate in conducting in Vienna at 21. He has conducted with many opera companies in the United States and Europe as well as the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. GIACOMINI, born in Veggiano, Padua, Veneto, Italy in 1940, is an Italian dramatic tenor. He debuted in Vercelli in 1966 as Pinkerton in Puccini's Madame Butterfly. He has since performed with the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy and at the New York Metropolitan Opera. Lightly toned, soiled and creased. Small tears along edges. Otherwise in fine condition.