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Though internationally her career was somewhat overshadowed by the other lyric sopranos of her day, perhaps due to an often understated presentation, her silvery voice, not large but focused enough to carry through even a Verdi and light Wagner orchestra, and her charm, winsome but not overly kittenish, made her a favorite in many European houses, particularly in Germany.

She studied music at the Barcelona Conservatory, and like many Spanish singers, she began her career in zarzuela, making her stage debut (as a mezzo) in 1949. While she left the zarzuela stage fairly soon, she maintained her ties to that genre, and throughout her career often recorded or performed zarzuela music in recitals. Her classical debut was in Barcelona in 1952, as a soloist in Beethoven's Ninth. Her operatic debut was as Cherubino in 1955 at Aix-en-Provence. She also made her Covent Garden debut that year as Violetta in La traviata, and her Glyndebourne debut the next year as Pamina in The Magic Flute. In 1958, she first appeared at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, beginning an association that lasted over 30 years. She was one of the most beloved artists at that house, and was awarded the title of Kammersangerin after just five years there, in 1963. She made her Salzburg Festival debut in 1961, in Idomeneo, and her Metropolitan Opera debut not until 1966, as Donna Elvira.

Early in her career she focused on the lighter lyric roles, especially Mozart, but as she matured vocally, she was able to add considerably heavier roles, including Eva in Der Meistersinger and Elizabeth in Verdi's Don Carlo without taxing her voice beyond its resources. She made relatively few recordings, but among those, her Violetta in La traviata (London 443 000-2) is one of the few that captures the elegance and style of the famous courtesan as well as the feverishness of her doomed love affair.

Despite debilitating stage nerves and a tendency to sing under pitch, Spanish tenor Giacomo (born Jaime or, in Catalan, Jaume) Aragall forged a significant career. (He sometimes used an Italian form of his last name, Aragali, as well.) While his gifts were not always realized to their fullest due to the persistent anxiety that dogged him, his lovely, slightly smoky timbre and easy top register were heard to excellent effect in the lyric roles of his young years and in the spinto parts he assumed in his maturity. Aragall's first serious studies were with Jaime Francisco Puig in Barcelona. In view of Aragall's poor circumstances, professor Puig had accepted him without fee. When five years had passed (including military service), Aragall traveled to Milan to study with Vladimiro Badiali. Within six months, the young tenor had won the Voci Verdi Competition. Such was his promise that in the same year as his stage debut (Venice, 1963 in Verdi's Jérusalem), he appeared at La Scala as the eponymous hero in Mascagni's L'amico Fritz. His La Scala debut led to the offer of a three-year contract, an occurrence that placed enormous psychological pressures on the 23-year-old tenor, introverted by nature and as yet unaccustomed to living up to high expectations. For several important debuts, Aragall was presented as the Duke of Mantua, Rigoletto serving as his first opera at Verona in 1965, at both Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera in 1968, and in San Francisco in 1973. The year following his San Francisco debut found him back in the California city for Massenet's rarely heard Esclarmonde, a production starring Joan Sutherland transported to the Metropolitan in 1976. A Decca/London recording preserved the work of most of the original production's cast, including Aragall as Roland. In the late '70s, nerves and distress at being apart from his family led Aragall to abandon his career for a time. Eventually, however, the desire to sing drew him back to the stage, more mature in handling career stresses and able to master a somewhat heavier repertory. Roles such as Cavaradossi, Rodolfo, Gabriele Adorno (Simon Boccanegra), Don Carlo, and Riccardo became staples along with certain French parts from earlier days, Werther, Faust, and Massenet's Des Grieux included.

Lorin Varencove Maazel was born of American parents in Neuilly, France on March 6, 1930 and the family returned to Los Angeles when Lorin was still an infant. He exhibited a remarkable ear and musical memory when very young; he had perfect pitch and sang back what he heard. He was taken at age five to study violin with Karl Moldrem. At age seven he started studying piano with Fanchon Armitage. When he became fascinated with conducting, his parents took him to symphony concerts, then arranged for him to have lessons with Vladimir Bakaleinikov, then assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. At the age of eight, the University of Idaho Orchestra visited Los Angeles. Bakaleinikov arranged for his eight-year-old pupil to conduct them in Schubert's "Unfinished" B-minor symphony. (Maazel was quick with languages as well; he learned to speak Russian from studying with Bakaleinikov.) In 1938, Bakaleinikov obtained a position as assistant conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The Maazel family followed him east so that Lorin could continue his studies with him. Lorin went to the National Music Camp at Interlochen, MI in the summer. On August 18, 1939, the National Music Camp Orchestra appeared at the New York World's Fair, and Lorin conducted it in a work. His appearance created a sensation, although some critics were negative, comparing the feat to the performance of a trained seal.

However, by 1941, Maazel had shown that he was a real conductor. He led an entire concert by the NBC Symphony Orchestra, earning a commendation from its music director, Arturo Toscanini. The next year, he conducted a complete program with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted a few other orchestras, including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. At that point, a halt was called to such displays, and Maazel concentrated on rounding out his education. He concentrated on the violin and gave his first recital on the instrument in Pittsburgh in 1945. In the same year he became first violinist of the Fine Arts Quartet. In 1948 he joined the orchestra as a member of the violin section. He was appointed "apprentice conductor" of the orchestra in 1949 and occupied that position until 1951. In that year he went to Italy on a Fulbright Scholarship for research in Baroque music. There, his first conducting appearance as an adult took place on December 21, 1952, in Catania. He began conducting elsewhere in Italy, then in Austria and Germany. He conducted at the Florence May Festival in 1955, at the Vienna Festival in 1957, and made his London debut in 1960 in a BBC Symphony Orchestra concert, making the then-rare choice of a Mahler Symphony, being praised for the performance's power and for his control over the structure of the work. In the same year he conducted Wagner's Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival, being the first American to conduct at the annual Wagner Festival there.

In 1962 he led the National Orchestra of France on an American tour; On November 1 of the same year he made a debut at the Metropolitan Opera leading Mozart's Don Giovanni. He then began touring widely as a guest conductor. He visited Japan and the U.S.S.R. in 1963. In 1965, he both conducted and produced a performance of Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin. In the same year, he was appointed artistic director of the Deutsche Opera in West Berlin (1965-1971) and the (West) Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (1965-1975). As head of the opera company, he conducted mostly standard repertory, and premiered Luigi Dallapiccola's opera Ulisse in 1968. While he ended his opera association in 1971, he retained the orchestral post, as well as taking on the positions of associate principal conductor of the New Philharmonic Orchestra of London (1970-1972) and music director of the Cleveland Orchestra (1972-1982), accepting the very difficult job of filling the shoes of the just-deceased conductor George Szell. Maazel filled that position with excellent results. The orchestra stayed at the same level of discipline and took on a rather more colorful surface to essentially the same "Cleveland sound" that Szell had instilled in them. He led the orchestra on ten major international tours and produced fine recordings with several record companies, including making some of the earliest and best-sounding recordings in the new digital technology with Telarc Records of Cleveland. He expanded the scope of the orchestra's repertory, bringing in new European works in styles that had not been to Szell's liking. He began producing staged operas within the regular concert season of the orchestra.

A very hard worker, Maazel also guest conducted considerably and in 1976 added another orchestra when he was appointed principal guest conductor of the New Philharmonic Orchestra (until 1980), and yet another in 1977 as chief conductor of the French National Orchestra (until 1982, when he became principal guest conductor (until 1988 when he became Music director (until 1991). In the midst of this he became the regular conductor of the famous Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Day Concerts, which he retained through the 1986 concert. He resigned from his Cleveland position and was named music director emeritus in 1982. In that year he began a four-year contract as artistic director and general manager of the Vienna State Opera, the first American to hold that position. However, a change of leadership in Austria's Ministry of Culture resulted in political squabbles over artistic policies, and Maazel felt compelled to resign in 1984 He became "music consultant" to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1984, was named its music adviser and principal guest conductor in 1986, and in 1988 was made its music director (until 1996). Other appointments included the Bavarian Radio Symphony (1993-2002); the New York Philharmonic (2002-2009); the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana (2006-2011); and from 2004, Arturo Toscanini Philharmonic. His last appointment began in 2011 as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic.

Maazel had a distinguished recording career. He won the Grand Prix de Disque of Paris and the Edison Prize from the Netherlands. His recording for Deutsche Grammophon of Ravel's opera "L'Enfant et les Sortileges" is a classic that has never been out of print and has been counted as the greatest recording of that masterwork since it appeared in the 1960s. He conducted the complete symphonies of Sibelius and Tchaikovsky with the Vienna Philharmonic in the 1960s for Decca (London); the former, in particular, is one of the distinguished recordings of the great Finnish composer's seven symphonies. Maazel also maintained his skills as a violinist; one of his famous recordings was as soloist and conductor in the five Mozart violin concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra.

Maazel was married three times: to Brazilian-American pianist Miriam Sandbank and to Israeli pianist Israela Margalit; both marriages ended in divorce; and to Dietlinde Turban. He received the Sibelius Prize of Finland, the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit from West Germany, and other honors and honorary degrees. ~ Joseph Stevenson