Obituaries.(ELENA NIKOLAIDI)(LOWELL A. FARR)(MIA SLAVENSKA)(MARIANA PAUNOVA)(MARIANA PAUNOVA)

ELENA NIKOLAIDI, Izmir, Turkey, June 29, 1906--Santa Fe, NM, November 14, 2002

A dynamic recitalist, opera star and teacher, Nikolaidi trained at the Greek National Conservatory and counted Athens Lyric Theatre appearances as Dalila and Carmen among her earliest professional engagements. Beginning in 1936, the contralto was a member of the ensemble at the Wiener Staatsoper for twelve years, singing Eboli, Azucena, Emilia and Amneris, among other parts, and she also appeared at Salzburg, Covent Garden, La Scala and Prague. She arrived in the U.S. in 1948. Her earliest North American appearances included a triumphant recital debut at Town Hall in Manhattan, and a striking Klytamnestra in a 1949 concert Elektra, with Astrid Varnay, Dmitri Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. Amneris was Nikolaidi's debut role at San Francisco Opera, in 1950, and she made the first of her seventeen appearances at the Met as soloist in a 1951 Verdi Requiem, conducted by Bruno Walter. In 1960, Nikolaidi joined the voice faculty of Florida State University in Tallahassee, where she remained until 1977, when she was invited by composer Carlisle Floyd to teach at the newly-formed Houston Opera Studio. Nikolaidi taught in Houston for seventeen years before retiring, in 1994. Her students included Erie Mills, Denyce Graves, Bruce Ford and Eric Halfvarson.

LOWELL A. FARR, Arino, ID, January 21, 1927--Atlanta, GA, October 8, 2002

As accompanist for Rose Bampton, Licia Albanese, Frank Guarrera, Mildred Miller, Evelyn Lear, Betty Allen, Simon Estes, Stanford Olsen and many other singers, Farr performed at Carnegie Hall and in virtually all the major concert venues in the U.S. He had a twenty-year teaching association with the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, commencing in the late 1960s.

MIA SLAVENSKA, Brod-na ...