In 1972-73 I saw some of Resnik’s final performances at the Met, as the Marquise in Daughter of the Regiment, Dame Quickly, Herodias.
(A decade later, she came back for a few Marquises which I didn’t attend.)
By the time I caught her, Resnik had gone deep into mezzo profunda territory, pushing her voice every which way in these character roles for maximum comic and macabre effect.
She was always a great singing actress, and indeed one of her most famous roles was the nearly silent Baroness in Barber’s Vanessa.
By the time I experienced her, Resnik was even accentuating, exploiting the register break that had set into her voice—or was it that fearless acting had precipitated the register break?
Anyway, she was unforgettable.
And of course, as a younger singer more dulcet. I was telling my brother, with whom I saw some of these performances, about listening to her sing Berlioz’s Dido at Carnegie Hall in 1960. [Available on VAI.]
Could she really sing that, he asked? Well yes, in 1960 she certainly could.