Memories of Opera on the Radio Pt. 4

I see I've been cheating in previous posts. I meant to include those broadcasts I actually heard "live": in car, living room, back yard, school, on transistor or portable or car radios, with batteries or extension cords. OK in this post I include only those that had me crouched by the speakers or transistor to my ear while everyone was singing and carrying on.

Pagliacci February 13, 1971: Richard Tucker, Teresa Stratas, Sherrill Milnes, Dominic Cossa/Fausto Cleva

Richard Tucker, THE Canio

The Met was recovering from a strike at the time of this broadcast. A year earlier, Franco Zeffirelli's production of Cav and Pag along with Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne (and Carlo Bergonzi!) in Norma that were produced on schedule. Richard Tucker had a colossal success as Canio. I remember that Zeffirelli told the press that Tucker was a great VOICE but not much of an actor-but in these rehearsals Tucker had pushed himself dramatically. There was still a great seal of buzz for Richard Tucker as Canio long before this February broadcast. Sherill Milnes was nearing the top of his career as America's macho-man baritone with everything: great voice, looks, musicianship. Teresa Stratas's  Nedda had likewise rocked the business   for the sexuality. Stratas gave a hot performance of his role-she inhabited Nedda, rather than playing Nedda. The press made comparisons to Sophia Loren.



This I heard on my trusty 8V transistor. The audio would have horrified most even in 1971 but I, at thirteen thought it was just great. I can still hear Tucker's voice swelling in Act I: A venti-tre ORE! Sherrill Milnes took the optional high ending of the prologue like a piece of cake. It as a few more years before I could completely appreciate Dominic Cossa. I stood for Les pecheurs de perles , which Cossa sang so beautifully at City Opera in 1980. Later Dominic Cossa gave Beverly Sills's farewell one of its few moments of pure class: He sang Schubert's Du bist die Ruh' while Cynthia Gregory danced. But in this Pagliacci, with no disrespect to anyone else, it was Tucker, Tucker, Tucker. I listen to this performance 40 years later and get chills.




Tristan und Isolde December 18, 1971 Birgit Nilsson, Jess Thomas, Irene Dalis, William Dooley, Giorgio Tozzi/Erich Leinsdorf

Jess Thomas

I wasn't much on the Wagner bus in 1971. Kids don't have much of an attention span-adults have less today then kids did forty years ago-and let's face it. Wagner operas are long. This was the Saturday before Christmas and I'm sure I was being ordered about to help clean, cook, wrap, shovel, sled or generally stay the hell out of the way. .OK. Halfway through the prelude of this performance I "got it". At last some of it. I could the beauty of of the first riding theme and its near resolution.  I remember sitting on the edge of my chair when that hit. Of Nilsson I remember thinking she was like a fast train, nothing could stop her. Her sound was endless-.




And I can still hear Jess Thomas, sounding intense with five notes: 'Was ist's? Isolde!'. I've always had a soft spot for Irene Dalis. At the time of this broadcast she had sung Isolde-not Brangaene-in San Francisco. It wasn't a success.  Her chest voice at 'vertraue nun Brangaene!' was devastating. Leinsdorf was music director of the Boston Symphony. He was a regular presence on Channel 2 as many of the BSO concerts were televised. Them were the days. I didn't know enough to pay attention to the conducting per se in 1971. I do remember a funny and unkind comment from a mentor of mine when Leinsdorf died, "And the angels sing!" 

The Dialogues of the Carmelites  January 5, 1977 Maria Ewing, Shriley Verrett, Regine Crespin, Betsy Norden, Raymond Gibbs, William Dooley/Michel Plasson 

Nobody knew what this was. Yes, the opera had been performed in New York (City Opera, God bless them) and it was often heard on campuses: whole lotta roles for women. Today with Sirius broadcasts of From the House of the Dead and Satyagraha, you may surprised to know that opera broadcasts  in the 70s and before were not adventurous. La Perichole was about it. No disrespect, but c'mon. The first time I remember the mold being broken was for L'Italiana in Algeri but that had Ponelle and Marilyn Horne.
Carmelites  at the Met had John Dexter and Regine Crespin. She was Poulenc's choice for Mme. Lidoine in Paris and Dexter was the razor sharp director of productions. That may not count for radio but the triumph of Carmelites was HIS as much as Poulenc's or anyone else's. So hearing an opera written in the 20th century on the broadcasts was a rarity. Dexter wrote that he insisted the first performance of this work be a Saturday broadcast, believing it would create buzz. It did! This performance was heavily papered...by this Saturday evening there wasn't a ticket to be had for repeats.

It was sung in English and except for Verrett-who was very grand for Mme Lidoine, a contradiction, you could take dictation of the singer's Eng;ish. Maria Ewing had a sadness to her voice, what Italians call morbidezza. Betsy Norden won all hearts as Sister Constance -she knew when to be adorable in this role and when NOT to be. Crespin gave the production authority and class.  She was the First Prioress,  Mme de Croissy ad the only non native English speaker in the cast. Crespin, even with Verrett on stage-was very much the star of this production. At first hearing Crespin's voice is woofy and hard to control. But like a great artist, she makes you listen. She doesn't have the easiest voice at this point, but it remains huge. Crespin can still caress a phrase: "Yes your heart is gentle and kind" she says to Blanche and melts us all.

The finale as the nuns marched to the guillotine got the silence. It sounds like the New York audience was shocked or moved. I suspect both.

Maria Ewing, better late...

Here's a postscript. This production was done on the Met tour and came to Boston in April of 1979. My buddies and I ushered. We arrived in good time for the 8 pm curtain. There were fliers all over the auditorium. The performance would be delayed until 9.30 at least.  (People didn't say 'chill out' in 1979) So the audience had nothing to do but mill around. The bar did  good business I'm sure. The singers came out in their street clothes to hang with the audience. What else were they going to do? Crespin, Dunn, Norden, Clarice Carson, Raymond Gibbs (nice guy, fine tenor-a wonderful Pelleas-look him up) all were hanging out chatting up the audience. Crespin sipped a bit of wine. We noticed Maria Ewing wasn't chillin'. It turns out she was the reason for the wait. She had decided to drive from New York and her car broke down! Some of the choristers told us that management was prepared to come down hard on our Maria, but that Crespin wouldn't permit it-and people made way for this great French diva. as they should have. Oh yeah, around 10 PM the show went on and it was sensational.
  

The Shroud of Turin

The Shroud of Turin is a linen cloth said to have been used to wrap the body of Jesus just after the crucifixion. The unwound shroud left an imprint of a man's face and body, thought by many to be the face of Christ. The Shroud is stored today in the Cathedral at Turin, the in Chapel of the Holy Shroud, built in the 17th century. The Shroud is rarely shown in public. Most recently it was viewed in 2010 by pilgrims, among them Pope Benedict XVI, who called the Shroud "An Icon of Holy Saturday".

The Shroud is at the center of anew book by Thomas De Wesslow, a British art historian called The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret Resurrection.  de Wesselow is a self described agnostic and this is not a book espousing religious dogma. In fact, the meticulous deconstruction of Shroud 'scholaship' over 2000 years makes unquestioning faith in church teaching seem quaint, if not ridiculous. Those of us raised in the Church fifty years ago were told these are the facts, no questions, period. de Wesselow is not a theologian but  historian and armchair scientist. Whatever his background, he has written a thrilling book, meticulously researched, a page turner.

de Wesselow re tells the story of Easter Day as follows: the tomb of Jesus was visited by Mary Magdalene and Martha. They were to anoint the body, in keeping with Jewish burial ritual. They found instead the Shroud. This visage on linen was shown to the disciples and the apostles (the Twelve) and it is from this cloth, rather than reincarnated flesh and blood,  that the resurrection of Christ from the dead was claimed. So in fact though the ages, the resurrection has been celebrated with out a corporeal presence. That's where dogma comes in. We were to have believed and not questioned two tenets of Catholicism. That Christ is present in his actual flesh and blood in the celebration of the mass. And that he did indeed rise from the dead as a living, sentient human three days after the Crucifixion.





I was a tad saddened in reading this either to have wholeheartedly believed since childhood or feeling suckered and foolish. Is this book an attack on faith? No. It is a convincing human argument based on science, attempting to explain (what the church claims never needs to be explained)  events of 2000 years ago.

De Wesselow points out that the gospels describing Christ's death and Resurrection were written many years after the facts and not by eyewitnesses. Paul, author of the Epistles, never knew Christ, never saw him. He was shown the shroud and again it is form this image that he began to spread the gospels, Resurrection and all.

To me a book is worthwhile if it makes me think and convinces me to at least try to see life in a different way. Thus The Sign is enorrmously worthwhile. If  De Wesselow doesn't write about faith, he does approach history with respect and care,and he tells a tremendous, and to me glorious mystery. The Sign will be one of my favorite books of 2012.

Daddy, Marilyn and Anna Nicole

One way to pack the opera houses, especially in this video age is to be as prurient as possible. The more things change, right? Years ago Beverly Sills shocked people when she said, "La traviata is an opera about a whore. You can dress her up and the music is magnificent, but she's a whore just the same." And indeed, Verdi's audiences in 1853 were shocked to see a woman living with several men, one for money and another for love, even if she did die in the end.

Wagner's twins have sex and conceive a child. Verdi has murders, rapes and riots. Mozart and da Ponte wrote of the droit de seigneur, where the master gets the bride before the groom. Opera has never been about stuffy people-the stigma of the plaything of the rich-stuffy with money-mystifies.

You'll be hearing more about composer Thomas Ades. His opera The Tempest is coming to the Met in a few months, and you'll see it in HD. It is a magnificent opera! Don't miss it!

Margaret Duchess of Argyll, a lady of many talents

And when an opera has the line: Is daddy squiffy? you'd best pay attention.

Powder Her Face is an earlier work by Mr. Ades. It concerts a ravishing red head of the 1950 and 60s called Margaret Sweeney. Cole Porter celebrated "Mrs. Sweeney" in song. Margaret was gorgeous, she liked a good time, and she got around. In 1951 she marred Ian Campbell the duke of Argyll. When, a number of years later it became clear that Margaret's active social life had not diminished with marriage, the Duke sued for divorce. A scandal it was. Polaroids of Her Grace, naked but for a strand of pearls,  on her knees pleasuring a member of parliament did not amuse hubby but had the Empire roaring. That was the least of it. Testimony revealed that Meg's conquests neared 100 during her marriage. The judge called her a whore from the bench, the divorce was granted and Margaret was free and broke.

Powder Her Face takes us to the Duchess-as she continued to style herself-about to be evicted from her suite at the Savoy.  Flashbacks add to the story. Few need further imagination:



(What's left of)  The New York City Opera produces Powder Her Face later this year. A good time for all may be guaranteed.

Famous for the right reasons

Then there's Marilyn. On this,  the fiftieth anniversary of her death-and she'd be 86!! if alive today-we have Robin de Raaf's Waiting for Miss Monroe, produced recently be the Netherlands Opera. American soprano Laura Aikin took the title role:






 


This opera will not provide the nasty laughs accorded to the former Mrs. Sweeney. Marilyn Monroe I always drought was waaaaay over -exposed after her death. Then I viewed a few of her films and realized why. The camera loved her and she it, having nothing to do with any sexual act or (sometimes) suggestions thereof. Some got it and some ain't and Norma Jean had it and how. I do wish she could rest in peace, but here she is in the opera house. Can another mini-series be far off?

Sad

But wait! Back to nasty and just plain vulgar.  Anna Nicole Smith, the former Vicky Lynn Hogan, has her own opera, called of course Anna-Nicole. The composer is Mark-Anthony Turnage. Not surprisingly the opera had a sold out run in London. It had the imprimatur of Antonio Pappano has starred the superb Eva-Maia Westbroek. Eva' is much more attractive than the huge boobed caricature she plays on stage. Anna/Vicky's marriage to J Howard Marshall left her rich and in court, and there's little doubt that this    daddy died happy-very happy-.





So the next time some worthy tells you opera is dull and for the rich you can say opera is sometimes about the rich, but hell look at those boobs on Anna Nicole. Look at Mrs. Sweeney 's myriad talents and the pathos of Marilyn. Who's bored?

Mozart's Advice

Here's a note to young singers:

Mozart wants you to loosen up and kiss it!

Before you next perform an art song, especially a German lied, please familiarize yourself with this brief work of Mozart's:



















And when you stand there seriously, when you look frowning out into the audience in your stiff formal gown or your too tight white tie and tails, and begin to sing in German, a language you don't speak fluently  but know is too serious, and you know your audience doesn't understand German, and expects to be devotional and bored but never entertained, remember that Mozart, the greatest musician God ever produced, wrote a choral work at the height of his fame, he whose music had moved bishops and emperors, Mozart wrote a canon asking you to lick  his  ass!

That should free you to perform from places of love, joy and irony.


Let us be glad!
Grumbling, groaning are in vain
It's the true bane of life
Growling and complaining

Kiss my ass!
Goethe! Goethe!
Gotz von Berlichlingen! Second act!
Let's out know together
And let your ass be licked!

Memories of Opera on the Radio pt. 3

Here's what I get for organizing boxes and boxes and wall fulls of broadcast opera on CD. It took several weeks and half a hernia but its done. Now I'm able to reacquaint myself with:

Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur MET April 19, 1969 Renata Tebaldi, Franco Corelli, Anselmo Colzani, Irene Dalis/Fausto Cleva

Tebaldi and Corelli: God and Goddess

Adriana! The opera all the critics love to hate. How many of them pay their way in? A great actress pines for the love of Franco Corelli-in tight pants, yet-sniffs poisoned flowers and dies. What's not to love? Audiences for his opera weren't worrying about the critics. They wanted to hear Tebaldi and Corelli. By 1969, at least in this performance, the great lady did complete turns around the circle of fifths to find her pitch-. But she delved into chest with abandon  and could still float a lovely tone -listen to the end of Act I-or the finale ("Ah del ciel") Corelli, exudes sex even in the radio. Macho, loud, stentorian, romantic in Act 1 with Adriana, supplicant in Act II, dashing and grief stricken throughout. Listen to the applause. Every time these two scratched the place erupted. That too, was opera. I was moved by a quote from soprano Loretta diFranco: "I remember doing Jouvenot in Adriana Lecouvreur, and the entrance of Tebaldi was incredible. You just stood in awe.That was great beauty."





This Adriana came to Boston the following week on tour. I was 12. It was the one evening I couldn't attend. Probably because my parents had a card game or the St. Vincent  de Paul Society and I couldn't get a ride into Boston. I missed Tebaldi and Corelli. All the more reason to enjoy this broadcast.

Lawrence Tibbett as Simon Boccanegra

Elisabeth Rethberg

Verdi: Simon Boccanegra  MET January 21, 1939 Lawrence Tibbett, Ezio Pinza, Giovanni Martinelli, Elisabth Rethberg, Leonard Warren/Ettore Panizza

Lawrence Tibbett put this dark, wonderful opera of the Genovese doge on the map. This is a well known performance, studded with names the likes of which don't exist today. Father Owen Lee, who is my guide in life, suggested that this may be the greatest Met broadcast ever. Lawrence Tibett's name is always mentioned with a sadness. His career was destroyed by alcohol but on this Saturday afternoon nearly seventy-five years ago he retained this large, warm beautiful baritone. Elisabeth Rethberg was in the twilight of her career but sunsets are usually very beautiful. Pinza and Martinelli. Legends  today. It was just a Saturday afternoon in New York. I m humbled listening to this-especially to  Leonard Warren as Paolo-already at 28 the next great voice in line to the great roles.

Giannini: The Taming of the Shrew. NEW YORK CITY OPERA April 13, 1958. Phyllis Curtin, Walter Cassel, John Alexander, Sonia Stolin/Peter Herman Adler.

The sound quality here makes me wonder if this was  a telecast. Peter Herman Adler was music director of the NBC Opera. I don't know. this was a New York City Opera production and a work and a cast like this make the best case for this company. An opera written by an American composer with a wonderful all-American cast. Phyllis Curtin, a gorgeous woman and exemplary musician. She probably makes music out of her grocery list. Walter Cassel is best known  today for another American opera-The Ballad of Baby Doe. A few blocks south he was also a Kurwenal, Scarpia, Telramund and Rigoletto. John Alexander sang everything and sang everything well. It's a further testament to the New York City Opera that his cast plays and sings so well as a unit. It's truly an ensemble company-delightful..exactly what this opera needs.

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde   MET March 19, 1955 Astrid Varnay, Set Svanholm, Joseph Metternich, Blanche Thebom, Jerome Hines, James McCracken/Rudolf Kempe

Read Astrid Varnay's memoir 55 Years in Five Acts.By the time of this performance the lady was in her mid thirties and had been singing leading roles at the Met since her last minute debut as Sieglinde December 6, 1941 (imagine the reviews THAT morning after). Varnay was coming to the end of her first Met tenure. From her book we learn that Rudolf Bing didn't much like Wagner and didn't much like Varnay. Her huge, black marble voice-which could take on a whine or a twinge of bitterness-is in great form for this Isolde. She gets the rage of Act I down. The love is a stretch for her, but there's plenty of beautiful singing. Bing also complained of the difficulty of bringing great conductors to the Met. He got it right with Rudolf Kempe. Kempe gets the architecture right-but he remembers that Wagner himself never intended his singers to be dwarfed by the orchestra. The beginning of Act II  is a perfect blend of an ecstatic orchestra and an electrifying Isolde. Set Svanhom doesn't need to be second to Melchior or anybody else. His performance is a bit square-not a lot of passion or fire-but he paces the treacherous third act quite well-he begins the opera strongly ("Was ist's? Isolde!") and ends it in beauty. I'm delighted to have re -discovered this broadcast. All the more reason to clean your room once in a while. 




Rossini: Semiramide OPERA CO. OF BOSTON February 7, 1965 Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne, Joseph Rouleau, Andre Montal/Richard Bonynge.





I had heard about this performance from folks who were there nearly fifty years ago. Marilyn Horne as the Assiriyan general Arsace was eight months pregnant, thank you very much. She made her entrance aboard a ship that came down the aisle of the Donelly Theater on Mass. Ave and Huntington Ave-the theater is long gone. I doubt Semiramide was known by many in 1965. Dame Joan had been singing it since 1962 and would bring it to Chicago,  London, Australia-everywhere but New York! Boston got her in this long, magnificent tragic opera by Rossini. Not only was Semiramide known in 1965, but the type of dramatic florid singing would have been new to many. Of all of the off air and studio recordings of Sutherland and Horne in this music  it is this performance in my hometown, in a decrepit theater near Symphony Hall that out sings all the others. Both are in their magnificent primes-pregnant or not. Both blend perfectly in the two great extended duets. The music holds no terrors for wither of them-and my they do toss off the notes. The men fare less well. Rouleau has a marvelous bass voice but the fiorature, heavily cut-is beyond him. On my CD there are chunks of the opera missing-it was either severely cut-likely-or parts are simply missing on the original tape. Whatever. Find this for the two ladies, or the one lady and the pregnant general.

Swear Thou the Jury.....

I've just finished four days of jury duty.                                                              
I didn't get a case and a lot of us were dismissed early.
I did have time to keep a little diary:

July 9::
A favorite colleague says that I rant. Can you imagine?
I do not rant.
OK, today is day 1 jury duty.
The few 19 to 22 demographics in the jury pool arrived for orientation either in
teeny teeny shorts with va-j-j- shots or those baggy pants with the low underwear.
Two young worthies with NO underwear were the talk of the room.
Hairy butt cracks don't go with coffee and filling out forms at 7:50 a.m.
in the courthouse in Columbus, Ohio. The jury monitor was maternal but firm.
Mother than once she was heard to say, "Honey..."
Stay tuned.

Juror

s four, five, six and seven

                                                                                                        
July 10::

Jury or not, can I be your daddy?

Jury day 2.                                                                         
I'm trying to be very adult and doctoral.
Carrying books: Dickens-Bleak House, a great new book on the shroud of Turin, and Andy Cohen's memoirs.I'm reading Andy behind the shroud so people don't think I'm weird.
In the acknowledgements he thanks his editors for allowing him to use the word "boner". Boner? Boner?
I wandered all over the Franklin County courthouse asking people what the hell is a boner? Then
I realized. He means bo-nah (who the hell says boneR. Jeez) Thank God the judge didn't know what the f was a boner OR a boh-nah so I didn't have to be embarrassed.
No case yet. No bo-nah either.

At this clip 3:00 you find there's more than one way to work a jury




July 11::
Jury day 3
Linda drove me in this morning.
In the middle of 71 she glances over and says:
"You didn't SHAVE!"
You look like an old man with ALZHEIMER'S!
You men think you look cool with that stubble but at your age!"

They work hard to make us comfortable and they succeed.
Free coffee, tea, meth crystals, whatever.
Four flat screen TVs in the 'quiet room' with titles and no sound.
You have your choice of 1) Jerry Springer ("I slept with my grandmother's sister and I'm only eleven!")
2)Rachael Ray (be still my heart) 3) Maury Povich's paternity tests ("My BROTHER is my baby daddy!")
and 4) cartoons. Daytime TV is why people go postal.
Very nice people use their cell phones in the corridor outside the quiet room and my,. they are loud.
I and 70 other people now know more about a man's wife's hemorrhoids .
No case yet. Can there be more drama?

July 12::

Be still my heart

Jury day 4                                                                                                                 
Half of the jury pool was sent home yesterday.
Not me!
This morning's movie is The Proposal . Yesterday's was Avatar.
Nothing above PG it seems. 
Waiting for a case, probably today ("The judges don't like to start trials on a Friday":-I'll bet.)

Ten years ago I was an alternate on a murder case. A Grandma named Mrs. Slaughter
-I shit you not- was accused of having her brother strangle another grandma and then drown her in her own bathtub.Compelling evidence again Grandma S., who as I recall had Closer to Jesus hair and was Maybellined to the gills.
The smarty M.I.T. grad on the jury wouldn't convict.

I couldn't find a pic of Josephine

Hung jury after two weeks,  and Grammie S was free to go
home and cuddle her grandchildren.
And so it goes!
No Rachael Ray on the TV  ten years ago.
No movies, either.

LATER, July 4

Had enough?
Apparently the state of Ohio has.
No case and all dismissed at 1 PM.
Thank you and goodbye jurors and goodbye Rachael Ray.
See you in my dreams.

A note about Evelyn Lear

Evelyn Lear. Who needs Liz Taylor?

The soprano Evelyn Lear died last week at the age of 86. She was always a very beautiful woman and I suspect she was on her last day. Being a Liz Taylor lookalike paid off for Evelyn Lear. More on that later.

Martina Arroyo, great artist that she is used to say, "I've never been the queen's delight." Meaning she lacked the vociferous and generally enthusiastic following of other sopranos of her time. Evelyn Lear might have said the same thing. Lear's repertoire was light on the Italian blood and guts, at least in New York: No Tosca at the Met, no Butterfly, no Desdemona-operas she sang to acclaim elsewhere. Instead we got the wonderful American opera Mourning Becomes Electra by Marvin David Levy, in a production by Michael Cacoyannis, conducted by Zubin Mehta. Would I had seen it! Lear's success in this role, and as Berg's Lulu and Marie in Wozzeck led to a snippy remark from Rudolf Bing: "You can't get a Callas for contemporary opera. you're lucky if you can get a Lear."



Lotta people were lucky Sir Rudolf. Lear helped put the two Alban Berg operas on the map in the States.It was after Bing left the Met that Evelyn Lear began singing Octavian, Countess Almaviva, Donna Elvira, Alice Ford and her exquisite, world class Marschallin. (Elisabeth Rethberg called this definitive') Here was a beautiful woman singing in an opera about a beautiful woman. She had a long and happy marriage to baritone Thomas Stewart, who was the go to guy for Wotan, Sachs, and Amfortas und so weiter. During a radio interview years ago they talked with some hilarity about their anxiety provoking years trying to "make it" in Germany. Nothing shy about these two people. They were meant to sing, and sing they did.





Thomas Stewart narrated Schonberg's Gurrelieder with the Cincinnati Symphony some years ago. He had retired from singing-and he seemed a bit frail. I remember seeing Evelyn Lear in the audience, on the edge of her seat, watching with concern and love as her husband stole the show.

Lear was a fantastic musician. Follow her performances with a score and see how scrupulous she was. There was no excess, no ranting. The tone was spinning, warm and lovely, be it Berlioz, Mozart, Verdi or Ginastera. And listen, being gorgeous didn't hurt. Evelyn Lear was signing Elvira in London hen a savvy producer spotted her, just as Elizabeth Taylor's 'Cleoparta' was hitting the screens. Long story short, Evelyn Lear played Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare shortly thereafter, . She was gorgeous and so was Liz, but Evelyn could sing!

A few years ago I was dramaturg to a production of  Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock. I wanted to find out all I could about Blitzstein's work, and his 1955 musical Ruben Ruben kept coming up. Further research told me that Evelyn Lear was featured in this show that didn't survive a Boston tryout. I wrote a note to the lady c/o the Washington Opera asking if she would share some memories of working with Blitzstein.




A few days later the phone rings at 8  AM. "Mr. Purdy, this is Evelyn Lear". Took the trouble to call me, and gave me a fantastic conversation about Marc Blitzstein ("he loved to play canasta and I was one of a few in the cast who could play"), about music and theater, about opera and she spent a lot of time asking about me. "You call me anytime, if there's anything I can do for you." This to a total stranger. I'll never forget the class of this lady-that her singing was superb was almost a bonus. And superb it was.

Cronkite by Douglas Brinkley

I was born in late 1956. I turned fourteen as the 1960s ended. Like most fourteen year olds, my mind was not on world affairs. While I was aware of the MLK-RFK assassinations, Vietnam, the 1968 democratic convention in Chicago, Kent State, Peace Day and the Manson murders-I was not riveted to any of it.  I do remember clearly seeing all of these events covered on TV-Black and white, rabbit ears-. My father was Archie Bunker before there was an Archie Bunker. His pungent comments to the TV screens would have my mother, Budweiser in hand, yelling, "Shut up Bill, for Christ's sake, you don't know what you're talking about. Look at all those poor goddamn kids being killed. Jesus, Mary and Joseph."

I am no longer missing the 1960s. I'm learning about them anew in Douglas Brinkley's new biography of Walter Cronkite. This book is like overly buttered popcorn..delicious and impossible to put down. The grease and cholesterol are worth it. That's a bad analogy, since this long  book is not a long read. I almost want to ration myself to a few pages a day to make the pleasure of learning the history going on around me in my younger days.

Brinkley gives us the serious, hard working, forthright, no bullshit newsman. He gives us "Uncle Walter"  who was courtly (sexist) with women, loved a good flirtation, more than one drink of an evening and a dirty joke. I've been called cynical now in my mid fifties, but it never occurs o me that Cronkite's glasses- off reaction to the murder of JFK (as a younger person remembers 9/11/...) was anything put spontaneous-a reaction to this stunning, awful news.





"If I've lost Cronkite I've lost America." LBJ was supposed to have said that, or a variation thereof, following Cronkite's excoriation of the Vietnam War.





No, his views weren't universally popular. People equated an anti-war stance with a hatred of our troops. Indeed there were enough morons who DID beat on our people, the ones who came home alive. THAT is what pissed off much of America. We were much more innocent then. The realization that all was not a it seemed or should be with elected officials was new, shocking and news. Would a 'Watergate" so traumatize the country today? Maybe. Remember we don't have Uncle Walter, who was not handsome, nor glib, nor elitist (stupid overused word) to tell us about what was going on and to make us as citizens demand to know more.

I don't believe a Cronkite would be able to function today-when a pretty girl getting a divorce after two months is news. Makes me rather glad I was born in 1956 and not 1996.

Memories of Opera on Radio pt. 2

Franco Corelli as Calaf. And still champ.

Maybe it was a bad idea to sort and organize my collection on opera broadcasts going back seventy years. There's only so much room, and all this Mp3 technology is beyond my advancing years. But  I've filled two large bookcases, pilfered form the store room, and there's more scattered over the floor. It took several weeks, but we are all sorted by composer and then title. OCD rocks!
But it is fun to know just where to find a specific performance and either remember hearing it originally or learning about voices and performance styles from the past.

Here are a few more:

Here are a few more

 
Massenet: Thais, January 28, 1978: Beverly Sills, Sherrill Milnes, Raymond Gibbs, James Morris/Sir John Pritchard  Beverly Sill's years sang at the Metropolitan were in the closing years of her career, with the sparkle and brilliance of her voice diminished. (Why it took so long is another story.) The tone is dry and brittle. Her first act is too obviously hoochy-kootchy, and lacks the sophistication needed to put over the character. Later on she can't fill out the dramatic writing for the randy courtesan who finds God through the help of the monk, Athanel. Sherrill Milnes is macho and vocally impressive. The rage of the character and his later grief and acceptance don't faze Milnes, who in 1978 was THE baritone in opera. The production was not liked much visually-I recall more than one cry of "Vegas!' for its faux oriental glitz. Thais is a good score of the second rank. There's obvious diminished chord and colorful 'wash' in the orchestra. It's more a question of musical show don't tell.Massenet was a master of the stage at the time of Sarah Bernhardt-her histrionics would be ludicrous today. Don't believe me?



 

Carol Neblett's X-rated Thais in

 Baltimore

Thais has a bizarre history in the States. It was for many years the property of Mary Garden, who learned it from Massenet. Geraldine Farrar created Thais at the Met and claimed to dislike the role. California bombshell soprano Carol Neblett infamously ditched a high note in a performance in Baltimore, shucking off her splendid robes altogether to reveal her own altogether. That made the papers. Anna Moffo destroyed her career with a very highly publicized recording of the opera In 1975 which found her voiceless. as in no voice. The booklet photos looked hot, though.

Anna Moffo and the Thais that wasn't

Unkind wags called these 1978 performances "Thighs", but say what you want about Sills, she sang this role 17 times in New York, having originated it in San Francisco, never,  I'm sure to an unsold seat. Her publicist floated a rumor picked up by all the newscasts-that she would dance naked on the stage. (David Brinkley cringed reading this-go ask your parents.)  The lady cheerfully told the press that she was "flattered anyone would think a fifty year old woman could be appearing naked, anywhere!" You gotta lover her. I saw this on tour in Boston




Menotti The Saint of Bleecker Street from the New York City Opera, with Catherine Malfitano, Enrico diGiuseppe, Diana Soviero, Sandra Walker, Irwin Densen/Cal Stewart Kellogg
This is the soundtrack to a TV broadcast from the New York City Opera in 1978.  I'm just old enough to remember the pre-Vatican II church, and whether its Irish Boston or Little Italy in New York, the ritual of the church and the dogma were pervasive. It was lived.  Menotti reflects this beautifully in this opera. I wish the video of this would be released commercially in toto.  Bits are available on youtube.



I remember watching the live telecast. The cast represented the best of American opera: Malfitano and the underrated Di Giuseppe-and the wonderful Diana Soivero.  And it represents the lamented New York City Opera at its best-as a company.

Verdi: La forza del Destino, Met January 23, 193. (forty-three-my keyboard won't type the number!) Stella Roman, Frederick Jagel, Lawrence Tibbett,  Ezio Pinza/Bruno Walter

This mid war broadcast comes to us with Spanish language commentary. With the exception of Pinza and the great Bruno Walter, the cast on paper doesn't look too appealing. Caruso introduced this opera to New York in 1918, with Rosa Ponselle in her first opera performance anywhere. Ponselle continued with the opera with Martinelli, Jose Mardones, Pinza, Danise until 1932. She was retired-sadly-by 193 so Stella Roman shared the role with Milanov. I went to college with one of Mme Roman's grandsons. She is considered another good not great artist. But there was a lot to this lady. She sang in the Italian premier of La donna senz'ombre (Die Frau ohne Schatten) and was acclaimed for her Marschallin in Il cavalier d la rosa. Hers is a beautiful voice that lacks the fatness-the juice throughout the middle register, and its short on top. Never mind. She gets the job done, and a fine job it is. Pinza is great. Jagel has a monochromatic voice but sings like a fine musician. Exciting he is not. He's loud when he's supposed to be loud, etc. Every discussion of Lawrence Tibbett's career goes into tragic mode once past 1939. Either it was overwork that led him to drink or drink that ruined his voice, but his throaty gargling and forced top notes are not those of the great Amercian baritone he had been. Bruno Walter reminds us that Forza is a tight dramatic opera with great music. It's a very passionate performance, the singing not always up to the conductor's level.

I want to pay tribute to Lawrence Tibbett by showing him in full voice, in 1935:

Frederica von Stade, THE Cherubino of my youth

Mozart Le nozze di Figaro Met February 7 1987. Jose van Dam, Jorma Hynninen, Kathleen Battle, Elisabeth Soderstrom, Frederica von Stade

Elisabeth Soderstrom. Wonderful even when NOT singing.

Von Stade owned Cherubino for years and I remember vividly not only her fine singing but her lovable, horny stumbling around as Mozart's randy little page boy. I attended this performance thanks to the Texaco Opera Quiz. I don't remember much about Kathleen Battle in her pre -smack down days, except I'm sure she was vocally ravishing (she was as Pamina and Adina around the same time.) Jose van Dam is a great artist who easily owns any stage. He is not a basso cantante but he points the text to the benefit of non Italian speakers. No, for me the news was the Countess of Elisabeth Soderstrom. She was nearly sixty at this performance. Just the way she held herself told you this was a noble lady. She is vocally understated but intact. Never will I forget the look on her face, all of three seconds, as she heard the Count trying to pick up "Susanna" in Act IV. One for the ages.


Puccini: Turandot April 27, 197four. Elinor Ross, Franco Corelli, Edda Moser, John Macurdy/Gabor Otvos. Met on tour in Boston.

 

Edda Moser

I saw my first opera in the War Memorial Auditorium in Boston in 1969. The boat show trade show auditorium would host the circus one week and the Met the next, or was it the other way around? No matter. It was no place for opera but it is what we had. It became home to me (long gone) I attended this Turandot. the draw was tenor Franco Corelli, he of the golden thighs, endless visceral voice and onstage/backstage mania. The voice rings out in this performance as it nearly always did. He attempts a diminuendo on 'o meraviglia' in Act I. The crowd went nuts for him. They always did. It was soprano Edda Moser who wiped up the afternoon. Who knew? She had sung Donna Anna earlier that week. she was a Met Queen of the night, Musetta. no handstands. This Liu is another story. There's a full, rich, luscious voice here. Even with Corelli it was Moser who got the ovation that afternoon. I remember her sincerely overwhelmed the audience response. I was cheering , too.

Elinor Ross, today...a goddess

Elinor Ross's career is being reassessed today. Listening to her broadcasts its true this was a huge, exciting voice. I remember the casing of vibrato all through the tone as off putting. During the intermission of this Turandot a friend said to me, "I've never heard her better". And listening today, its true-she'd be a goddess. Kudos to conductor Otvos for keeping everyone together-mostly-in a bran of an auditorium. (Note to the Emperor Altoum. Sing, don't mince.)

Father's Day, by Buzz Bissinger

Here's a question for you Dads out there. Do you kiss your sons?
Not just when they're adorable toddlers, but later-even into adulthood.
I was raised to kiss my father and did so the day he died when I was in my 20s.
He and I had a tormented relationship that was never healed. Thirty years later I'm learning compassion and if that's his legacy to me, good.

But what about the rest of us? I have a daughter, not a son so I don't count much for this discussion.
Not to weird anyone out or to suggest anything besides deep paternal love, but I've been thinking a lot about men and their sons since reading Buzz Bissinger's new memoir, Father's Day.

Mr. Bissinger is a journalist and sports writer, best know up until now for his book Friday Night Lights-which became a hit move and a fine TV series. We learn now that Bissinger became the father of twin boys thirty years ago. The babies came far too early. Gerry recovered well and is today a smart 30 year old pursuing a successful career. Zach was oxygen deprived and Zach's life today is very different. He was left with the cognition of a 7 year old.

Zach will never live independently. He will never drive a car, hold a meaningful job, marry or have children of his own. He will always be 7 years old. His father has not written a book filled with new age- paeans to divine order and all that shit. Buzz Bissinger has written a book about a relationship between a father and a man child that is messy, heartbreaking, infuriating and one of the most loving I've ever encountered. Buzz is the dad to a man who doesn't spontaneously love back, but he is certainly heartful and affectionate. This kind of dialogue goes through the book.

BUZZ:  Do you love me?
ZACH: Yup.
BUZZ: Why?
ZACH: 'Cuz you're my Dad.

You will never tire of these exchanges. Such is Bissinger's sincerity-and skill as a writer.
 And to this day, Buzz Bissinger kisses Zach goodnight.

Buzz and Zach

At the hear of Father's Day is a cross country drive the two take, a bonding experience that Father hopes will truly impress Son. It doesn't. Zach isn't capable of that kind of depth. Zach has savant qualities. Geography and maps are his thing, but being a savant takes the place of emotional connection. He knows he has a dad, a mom, brothers, step- parents and he loves them all,  "'Cuz you're my Dad". Period.

The trip goes from Pennsylvania to Chicago and down down down to West Texas and up to California. Bissinger re- lives some of the early days of Friday Night Lights. Zach wants to visit old haunts. The drive is exhausting and disorienting. A perfect 'date night' for father and son in Vegas is a bust. The trip is no bust-Buzz Bissinger makes clear that the opportunity for time alone with one of his children is a tremendous opportunity. Zach doesn't and won't change. Buzz finally accepts his son's limitations and loves him even more.

Zach goes back to his job bagging groceries in Philly. Brother Gerry knows and accepts that eventually Zach will be his responsibility.. Bissinger writes a beautiful and heartbreaking book with no phony endings. Zach loves his father,  "'cuz you're my Dad'.

Memories of Opera on Radio

A young friend and I have exchanged lists of collected opera performances on CD for trade.
 I had spent part of this spring cataloging and updating my collection of broadcasts going back to 193 (Deems Taylor's Peter Ibbetson). My list is long but in no way as impressive as the many completists with whom I correspond.

My friend sent me his 'wish list' from my collection. I'm delighted to share. As I pulled the CDs and sampled some, the floodgates of memory opened.

Massenet: Werther  March 27, 1971-the Met broadcast premiere of an opera the company had not performed since 1910. Franco Corelli starred as Goethe's unhappy (and unhappy, and unhappy...) poet,  with Rosalind Elias as Charlotte. With John Reardon and Donald Gramm.. Alain Lombard conducted. There was an outcry that Corelli was cast in this over Gedda. And its true our Franco yelled and yodelled his way through the French. But who would have looked better in the blue frock coat and tight-tight leggings?  Elias was gorgeous in this role. I met her years later and she told me the role was her favorite-it meant a lot to her. To me, too. Elias is on Broadway this year, at 82 in Follies. Great lady

Rosalind Elias: Still wowin' them

I saw this Werther  in Boston a few weeks after the broadcast. Crespin sang the Charlotte with Corelli. What I remember most is Corelli's's wife screaming at him back stage. She could be heard out front, in the vast car/boat show-esque War Memorial Auditorium. Backstage there was a mob around him. Crespin was ignored and pissed. He picked me, a kid out of the crowd, flashed me a smile (it would have melted you, too-I don't care who you are) and signed my program.
   

Last night of  'La Loca' Beverly Sills and John Mauceri

Menotti:  La Loca (The Madwoman) Menotti wrote this as a vehicle for Beverly Sills's farewell performances in 1979 and 1980. There was a great deal of pre-show hype about this. I attended a talk Sills gave where she described the opera -then a work in progress. Her description of the mad Queen Juana-a daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella-who was abused by father, husband and son...was riveting. Alas. At the premiere in San Diego the opera was still in progress. At the New York opening, well, a great opportunity had been squandered. The lady herself was cheered to the rafters. Chunks of it as I recall had no music! An opera who first lines are "Early this morning I saw three horses, galloping round and round", well it didn't improve from there. And I thought it sad that Sills took her last curtain calls as the abused and elderly Juana, in rags. Nevertheless, always a pro, the lady stopped the applause and said, "Thank you for a wonderful love affair. The best is yet to come." You gotta lover her.

Puccini: La boheme October 16, 1972. The Met debut of Henry Lewis, who became the first African American to conduct at the Met. Is he still the only one? Scandalous. This is an in house recording. Anna Moffo was in the midst of her vocal crisis, plus a high profile marriage to Robert Sarnoff, the chairman of RCA. She lost her voice but not her glamour. She had just sung Mimi in Hartford. The reviews were not kind. Occasionally she could put it over, but her career never recovered from a disastrous broadcast of Lucia in 1969. (A party favorite for vocal necrophiliacs.) Richard Tucker sang Rodolfo-what a luxury to have that great voice based at the Met for so many years. He died a few years later at 63-I heard later performances and he easily rattled the roof. The real deal. If you are under fifty you missed out on a voice that  like Nilsson, had vast and tremendous presence.




J. Strauss: Die Fledermaus January 23, 1955 Eleanor Steber. What's not to love? By 1955 the booze and the night life were catching up with her. She had a few years of great singing ahead of her (Arabella, Vanessa) but already she was feeling Bing's preference for foreign artists. I don't think there was a finer musician in opera than Steber. Her master classes at NEC years later were a hoot. She was bedecked like the Boston common Christmas tree. Her concerts in Jordan Hall yielded nothing to age or the party life: Big Verdi, Strauss, Mozart, Poulenc, Brahms. The voice was patchy but the delivery was great. Oh yes-Fledermaus. Patrice Munsel I'm sure stole the show as Adele. She was later considered somewhat crude but I've never heard an -ina performance from Munsel  where she didn't steal the show. Charles Kullman and John Brownlee are in the cast: the latter made his debut in opera in London, 1926, on Melba's last night at Covent Garden. Jarmila Novotna was demoted to Orlofsky in her final Met years. Franz Lehar's Giuditta, not to mention a Violetta, Butterfly and Octavain of note-I used to see Novotna at the Met in the mid 1980s. She was that age herself then, but a lovelier old lady you never saw, except for my Grandmother Annie Duddy-but she died a few years earlier.

Phyllis Curtin. Who was lovelier?

Milhaud La mere coupable This is the neglected third Figaro play by Beaumarchais. Milhaud's opera was introduced in Geneva in 1966. I doubt it's been performed again. This is the premiere, in so- so sound. I have always loved Phyllis Curtin, for her pioneering of American music-and her great mix of sexiness and brains. What an artist! She's the Rosine-the title character.  Curtin stated many year ago in an interview that she had sung the permiere of this opera. Last year I finally found this 50 year old broadcasts. I wrote the lady asking if she's like a copy-she wasn't interested but wrote me a long marvelous post ("Dear Christopher: What a memory you have!") She herself recalled little of this except it was a rush-rush job, deadlines missed and there was a whole lotta sight reading going on. One listen told me why the opera isn't done. Jose van Dam has a tiny role-with Luis Quilico. Serge Baudo conducts.

MORE TO COME........

Peter Gelb for a Day

  
I've never met Peter Gelb. My name will mean nothing to him.
Peter Gelb is the General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera.
He's responsible for a half billion dollar company which for many reasons must maintain its status as the world's finest.

His job is to put together a top quality product for about 250 performances a year.
His bigger job is to put fannies in seats.
I'm being polite here.
The Met board is lacking in the old money because the old money is either dead or gone the way of Bernie Madoff.  I daresay most of the board members to whom Gelb must answer are or were financial mavens oriented to the bottom line. The old question, "Why do you need all those violins anyway?" is not a total joke. So it is that in this lousy economy, the sight of empty seats must mean trouble in the upstairs boardrooms.



Look folks, Gelb is having to balance musical and dramatic sophistication with an audience that wants to be entertained. Or a company controlled by those who want to be entertained. Few of this potential audience-the mass audience, reads Opera-L or patretrre box und so weiter. They pays their money and they don't want to take no chances.So Gelb has to come up with, if not sure fire winners, then flops that can be re- imagined for good copy.

I don't imagine the to-do over the Robert Lepage Ring staging is causing sleepless nights. This kind of argument is good publicity. What is not good publicity is looking like an idiot by silencing a magazine or a blog. Discussed elsewhere. 'Nuf said..

Could you do Peter Gelb's job for one week? Be the target boy for people who express genuine critical concerns over the product, or for those who bitch and don't attend, and for people who have more than a few screws loose, and for those in the middle, who enjoy finding things and people to hate. Then there are the parties to be satisfied and kept happy: Singers, chorus to Renee Fleming, orchestra, wardrobe, stage hands, lights, camera you name it. Any one group can shut down the show. Then there' s the board, needing to be stroked and petted for that extra five hundred thou Bernie didn't get. 

Never mind when Karita or Juan Diego or Riccardo decide not to show up, and Jimmy is sick and some idiot is moaning on line that the soprano in The Enchanted Isle (A Gelb hit in my opinion) smiled too much.You think its all limos, luxury apartments, gourmet on the grand tier and the directors box for Les troyens? For all the time a person has you might as well live across the street at the West Side YMCA and chew on a tuna fish sandwich. Hookers and blow would be nice if they were offered (I'm not saying they are) but not much fun if you're too aggravated or too fucking exhausted.



Gelb is probably not helping himself much with his cold demeanor. He comes across as forbidding and awkward. We don't need a teddy bear in this job, but a little of Rudolf Bing's timing and punchy humor would go a long way.



I have to love an impresario who gives us From the House of the Dead and The Nose; who engages a producer who understands that The Barber of Seville is meant to be funny. The HD presentations make the Met an international brand in the way radio broadcasts used to. We who don't in New York (and I grew up in upstairs standing room but saw my last Met performance in 2005) find ourselves invested in the Met and its repertoire, if not always its people, in our local movie theatres.

Peter Gelb. Want his job? I dare you.

Failures? Who liked the Tosca? I suspect we've seen the last of The First  Emperor. The Ring is the one-or four-productions the public loves to hate. It had a lot to do with machinery and very little with characterization. Peter Grimes, if they had opened one more freakin' window...But Gatti-Casazza had his failures too. Joseph Breil's The Legend was assigned to the young Rosa Ponselle. Sixty years later she told her biographer, "The girl had a feather sticking out of her somewhere" and reported she had burned the score. Who remembers Cleopatra's Night or La campagna sommersa-the latter a flop by Respighi which Elisabeth Rethberg and Martinelli couldn't save. And if you know who the hell is Gatti-Casazza, you need to get out more.

Catherine Russell

Catherine Russell

This goes under the category "Where have I been?"

A chance listen to Terry Gross's Fresh Air on NPR introduced me to singer Catherine Russell.
Now I can't get enough. Why should I?
It's a voice like honey-molasses. Bake it in a pie or eat it right out of the bottle.
This is wonderful, energetic and personal singing:




Oh my, I love me some Catherine Russell.

She has a great webiste: www.catherinerussell.com

Enjoy.

Not Seeing DFD

The great baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau has died, at 87.

His name was a footnote to me in my foolish youth, because he was not known for loud, florid Italian opera.
He was a lieder singer. German art songs. Very prissy. Stand there in tails and sing in German to an audience that didn't understand German but got together for one of his American concerts because, like castor oil, it was supposed to be good for you.

Isn't it great to be young and stupid?

I remember a time when I thought Hugo Wolf was boring (no tunes) Schoenberg was a fraud and the sun rose and set on Donizetti and Puccini. I still love Donizetti and Puccini. Hugo Wolf is now a god to me. Schoenberg?: Oh, well. I do love my Moses und Aron

Back to Dieskau. From him I began to understand the art of intimacy. It takes a lot of power to hold  people around your little finger. DFD could do that:





I used think that a concert with one singer and one pianist was a rip -off. I was with Anna Russell who said, 'The German lied has to be approached with great reverence and utter seruiosness'. she was only partly serious. There's a lot of room for charm, blood, sex, emotion and fire. Dietrich Fischer Dieskau did not have a rolling glorious  baritone voice. It was a good voice. But nobody ever told a story better than Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. isn't that what singing is? Telling a story? Take a walk on a lovely spring day. Smell the flowers. Pay attention to the sky:





I saw him twice in concert. The first time at age 12. How and why I got there at that age is another story. I had been fit for glasses the week before. The glasses that I left at home that Sunday afternoon.
From the second balcony I recall the outline of a very tall, big man. He sand 'Dies schoene Muellerin.' I didn't know it. They didn't teach German in Sacred Heart parish. I remember nothing about what I heard, and remember I couldn't see either.

Any one of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's recordings of 'Die schoene Muellerin' would go with me to the desert island. (Aksel Schotz, too)





 I saw Dieskau again, also in Symphony Hall, ten years later. It was an all Mahler program. A lot of the Knaben Wunderhorn songs. By now I was starting to get it. What I remember most is that he made lieder conversational, and that he was singing only to me. The hall was of course sold out, but there I was, now with glasses on-and Dietrich Fischer -Dieskau had me laughing and crying and everything in between. To me his gift was making conversation in and with music. You didn't have to know a word of German to understand, his inflexion and musicianship were so striking.

Still, I regret being blind and deaf to Schubert's lovely mill maid. A great 'what if' for me, along with two others, Tito Gobbi as Scarpia and Cesare Siepi as Don Giovanni. I saw 'em. I was there but damned if I can remember . I'll tell you about them another time.

Carmen, October 15, 1979

A few weeks after I moved to New York in the fall of 1979,the big news on the streets was the impending New York City Opera debut of Victoria de los Angeles. The great lady had not sung a staged opera in New York for many years. Engaging her was thought to be both a coup and savvy publicity for Beverly Sills, new as General Manager of the Company.


  




There were two occasions I remember when the return of a beloved artist brought with it great love, great joy and unrealistic expectations. Mme de los Angeles return as Carmen was one of those times (the other was Carlo Bergonzi's Otello in Carnegie Hall in 2000).

But what did I know? I was 22! loved opera and (thought I) knew all about Victoria and Carmen. The City Opera was across the street and the tix were $4. (I always felt welcomed there) It was announced that Mme de los Angeles would sing several performances each of the Countess and Carmen

I  had already crossed Broadway a few times, for Faust and Tosca. Beverly Sills, red hair flaming to shame Lucille Ball, would sit in the first seat stage right of the first level. She was there that October night.

The place was sold out. Victoria de los Angeles had legions of fans, as she does today, a few years after her death. And people loved the City Opera's Carmen. Good cast: Ricardo Calleo (handsome) Robert Hale (dashing)  Gwenlynn Little-a lovely voice you could fall in love to. And one of the great names in opera in the title role. For four bucks.

Recently I found a CD rom of 18 performances of Carmen-beginning with Stignani and Gigli in 1949 (there's a mental image)  and very much including that October performance in New York. I was up there in the cheap seats. I remember VdLa's delayed entrance. At La voila! Voila la Carmencita! the men sang into  the wings...and waited...and then out she came, hands on hips. Deafening applause. A roar that went on and on.

Oh, dear.

Even from the cheap seats it was obvious this was an older lady. Victoria made her New York debut in1949 and her Met years were 1950-1962. What were we to expect in 1979? She began to sing and you felt the nerves in the audience. The color was there. Her voice was recognizable, but very thin, small and dry. She had trouble holding pitch. There were real flashes of the good ol' sound-like an orange rind-but the lady was working mighty hard! There was a fair amount of quasi parlando going on. And no, I don't remember the sound over thirty years ago.Charles Wendelken-Wilson* conducted. He really tried to help her. I remembered being disappointed in her looks, pig that I was. She didn't sound like her Beecham recording and that disappointed me.

 I left after the first act. It seemed more respectful not to stay.


She canceled all the other performances and left town.
What had been a coup for Sills (should she have known better?) turned out to be a flop.

But I'm listeningg to the performance now. Chorus, orchestra, supporting cast all first rate. Robert Hale is very sexy, even audio only. I like Calleo a lot. And de los Angeles has fine moments I didn't stay to hear.

I did see the lady again, 10 years later! in recital at Manhattan music. She had a thread of voice. A frayed thread. She sang Brahms, Falla and Granados in a small hall. She was enchanting. God bless her.

I've said it before. I will always love the city Opera.


   *I heard many of his NYCO performances. Years later he was conducting and broadcasting in Dayton. I could have driven forty five minutes and said hello. I didn't.