Opera

Today is my birthday, and it wouldn’t be complete, nor quite so festive, without the traditional birthday call from Bidu Sayao.

listen 12:01 a.m. precisely, every July 3rd.

Since my grandmother did the exact same thing before she passed away, I’ve adopted Mme Sayao as my “Avó”. We should all have a Brazilian grandmother, and now I’ve got mine. She calls me her “Dear Met” and I call her “Mammaw Bidu” (it sounds Portuguese, even if it isn’t)

Every year when Bidu Sayao calls, I listen amazed. The quality. It’s so lifelike. I wonder which cell phone carrier she uses?

Since Maestro Levine’s 65th birthday was June 23rd, this post is rather belated. Few people realize, however, that it takes approximately seven days for birthday wishes from the Great Beyond to reach us here on earth — and if the prima donna / well-wisher is having a great day on the heavenly golf course, it could take even longer.

audio Soprano Dorothy Kirsten outs herself as the world’s first Jimmy queen in this radio interview from 1970.

Levine certainly went a long way, just as Miss Kirsten predicted almost 40 years ago, and he’s still goin! Dorothy Kirsten As Sibyl. Bravo Maestro. Brava Diva.

On second thought, make neither love nor war. Surf the DGG LPs Gallery instead, just like I do, for hours. Sometimes, I get so lost in Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft cover art that I forget I’m a bitter old opera queen with no sex life –at least for a few moments. Then I remember that I turn 41 this week, and hope no one finds out.

Rita Gorr and Franco Corelli, together. Eeew, I just wet myself.

audio Act 4, Scene 1 of Verdi’s Aida. Amneris: Rita Gorr. Radames: Franco Corelli.

“Judgment Scene”? Hell, that was “Judgment Day“!

“… and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put Franco Corelli on his right and Rita Gorr on his left.”

Some opera fanatics will be put with Franco that day, while others will be put with Rita … forever.

“Then they will go away to eternal Gorr, but the righteous to eternal Corelli.”

Whose side are you on?

No, you don’t Eileen — and neither do you, Doris. Nobody’s got the right to sing nothin, get it? There’s no constitutional right to sing whatever the hell you want. No Gotta. No Right. No Sing. Period. Heck, we can’t even get equal rights for both men and women — and we still gotta stand up for our love rights too.

Of course, since Eileen Farrell sang the blues so well, everybody looked the other way and let her do her thing. Unfortunately, Eileen’s blues set a dangerous precedent. The floodgates were opened. The slippery slope got a new coat of Crisco. After all, if Eileen Farrell can sing any damn thing she wants, then everybody thinks that they should be able to sing any damn thing they want too. It’s called “anarchy”, friends. And when Doris Day attempted to exercise her right to sing the Liebestod, we almost lost the Cold War.

Among the more tantalizing projects conceived for Day was I’ve Got a Right to Sing the Classics, an album inspired by one that Columbia had brought out that year, opera singer Eileen Farrell’s I’ve Got a Right To Sing the Blues. If the hefty Wagnerian soprano could record Harold Arlen standards, why couldn’t Day record classical pieces? “I used to give Doris classical records,” Harbert said

Note: that’s James Harbert, Doris Day’s rehearsal pianist, musical arranger, orchestra leader, and apparently all-round “musical advisor”.

He introduced her to Wagner’s “Liebestod” - “one of the sexiest pieces ever written”, he added. “And she loved the recording of George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. She asked for another copy to give to someone else. If she had gone the classical route, she would have ended up at the Met.”

Note: Fellow Fanatics, we fall-out every time we read that last bit, don’t we?. But that’s exactly what the book says “he” said. I’m not certain about much in life, but I am sure that Doris Day would not have ended at the Met. Jeanette MacDonald never even made it to the Met, for heaven’s sake. Besides, by the time Doris would have gone the classical route, a new regime would be in power at the Met. If Rudolf Bing had trouble with Traubel, what would he have had with Day? “Calamity”?

But Day feared she wasn’t up to the task of cutting such a record, and she was hesitant at first. Harbert softened her nerves by assuring her there were a number of well-known classical pieces that did not “require a huge operatic range.” She warmed to the idea. Harbert remembered working with her on Mozart’s “Voi che sapete” (from The Marriage of Figaro). After Day said, “Well, that’s simple,” Harbert answered, “For you, it is … We may have worked on a song by Ravel or Debussy as well,” he continued. “She especially liked the idea of our just doing it with the piano, as opposed to with a big orchestra.”

Though it was Harbert’s supervisor, Irving Townsend, who produced the Farrell crossover album, he proved instrumental in quashing I’ve Got a Right to Sing the Classics. “It’s a cute idea,” Townsend told Harbert. “But if the critics take her task for daring into the classical field, she’s going to get upset and we’ll never be able to get her to record anything again.”

Note: To honor a great patriotic American, I proclaim today “Irving Townsend Day”. I just wish Townsend could have gotten to Barbra in time, too. Hey, as a symbolic gesture, let’s go quash our “Classical Barbras” right now. All of us. Let’s do it. EVERYBODY… RIGHT NOW!

We love this. I’m totally distracted now from annihilating every Ho-Ho in my apartment in a vain attempt to annihilate Donna Pescow from every corner of my psyche. My hips aren’t that big, are they? Well, she’s shorter than I am.

If Schiller & Verdi were the creative team behind “Dynasty”

If Montserrat Caballe was Krystle, Trapped In A Loveless Marriage To Blake But Actually Loving Her Stepson Stephen

If Grace Bumbry was Alexis, Forced To Choose Between Leaving Denver Forever Or Moving Into A Nunnery … Permanently

Then Dynasty Catfights Would Be Sung, Not Slugged

(And The World Would Be A Less Violent Place, Indeed)

dynasty

Damn. That Orange Stadium in Denver Is Windy As Hell

swanlaketosca

Identify that Tosca correctly and you could win an year’s supply of Foie Gras

Is the ghost of soprano Leontyne Price really haunting a concert hall in Montreal? One opera fanatic thinks so, and claims to have the video to prove it.

The team is sent to investigate.

leontyne

“There’s definitely something going on there, but we don’t think it’s a haunting. After all, Leontyne Price ain’t dead yet. Most likely it’s just residual energy leftover from one of Miss Price’s performances in the hall. Nothing to be afraid of, really. Unless you’re Renee Fleming.” -Official Statement, “Ghost Hunters Operatical”

New York Times
July 25, 1985
CORRECTION

A Washington dispatch yesterday about President Reagan’s welcome for President Li Xiannian of China incorrectly described Grace Bumbry. Though she has occasionally sung soprano roles, she is a mezzo-soprano.

Whenever I pick up a book, especially one with a non-operatic subject, I immediately turn to the Index and scan for familiar names — and, more often than not, I’m surprised by what I find. For example …

I almost fainted when, in Kitty’s Kelley’s woefully-told tale of Frank Sinatra “His Way: The Biography of Frank Sinatra”, I stumbled upon the following:

Bumbry, Grace, 461

Did Frank schtump Grace, I thought? After all, this IS a Kitty Kelley book.

Turning to p.461 however, I was relieved, albeit only slightly, to discover that Grace sang at Ronald Reagan’s inaugural ball, along with Frank Sinatra, “a parade of jerks, clowns, and no-talent mediocrities” …and Robert Merrill. The only performer singled out for any praise was Bumbry: “Except for the Metropolitan Opera’s Grace Bumbry, the show had nothing to offer anyone with intelligence or a respect for quality” (Rex Reed, New York Daily News).

And it stayed that way for eight more years.

I hate to give Julie Taymor any ideas but … Amii Stewart/Natalie Dessay as Queen Of The Psychedelics really speaks to me. Or, maybe, it’s those ’shrooms I just ingested. Hmmm. Let’s hope so. Knock wood.

discoqueen

He was a mighty raucous Manrico, that’s who.

trova “Di quella pira” (with encore, presumably). Giovanni Consiglio, tenor.

Warning: This Trovatore comes from that enigmatic opera house known as “Pennsylvania”. Upon closer inspection however I feel safe in placing this performance at one of those bars down on Locust Street, with a bunch of drunken dock workers mumming the male chorus. In short, it was a rough-and-ready night of 1,000 troubadours, circa 1966.

If you’d like to enlighten yourself re: Giovanni Consiglio (as, I admit, I had to), click on the image below to link to a very informative blog article. And, yes, there IS a Philly connection!

I was at the local Borders yesterday when I noticed that Catherine Malfitano was on the cover of the new “Rough Guide To Opera” …. and I thought, “How appropriate”

In his clever comment to my “Pieta (1977)” post, fellow fanatic “Momentous” wonders if Maria Guleghina is, in fact, Wonder Woman. While La Guleghina’s voice is surely a thing of wonder, considering everything she’s put it through, I’m not sure Maria meets the secondary requirement for “Wonder Woman” status — big boobies (my father, after all, used to call my favorite childhood television show “Wonder Boobs”). I’m not saying Guleghina ain’t stacked, I’m just saying that I have no personal experience with them either way. There is, however, another singer who most certainly meets both wondrous requirements.

Since, for some inexplicable reason, gay men love big tits, we present a 90 second ode to that soprano’s bazookas.

Wonder Woman

Leona Mitchell, Wonder (Bra) Woman

Leona’s “O patria mia” on YouTube (from whence the clip above came) is pretty wondrous too, except for a Whitney Houston-esque final high c (but, at least, she makes it, unlike some, more famous, others).

Attention Opera Fans! Look for a cameo appearance by Dame Gwyneth Jones in the new Sex And The City movie. Dame Gwyneth Jones plays the mother of Samantha Jones, aka Kim Cattrall

This reminds me of that old Bette Davis movie where she’s the good twin AND the bad twin, except that here it’s Grace Bumbry who plays both the good & the bad sister! Bravii to La Grazia!

Oh, btw, I think I’m re-doing my boudoir in Early XIIIth Dynasty . Love the chaise lounge.