News is coming about a thrilling night for me. I am using this summer to try to find a healthy person to go forward, a more acceptable modern version of this old fashioned girl. We have lots of the NEW to keep everyone hopping, I hope to keep an exponent of the “old-fashioned operatic religion” in front of the audience as well. Balance. That is the key challenge and delightful promise.
Hope to see everyone who loves the music and opera as I do and celebrate together.
A really lovely and gentle man. Educated, curious about everyone and everything in the arts, a keen and masterful eye. Just to listen to him sing all by himself, without any backup or instruments. He was bursting with creation and music. A real performer.
Had the “IT” special gift from 5 years old on. Burning talent like that that young. Talent. Off the charts brilliant. A loyal friend to so many people I know. Haunted. Lonely in the non cliche true meaning of that word.
I found him delightful, quick witted, very sexy, no kidding, virile and charismatic. A thoughtful host, a prankster, gleeful and full of fun but never at anyone’s expense. An authentic child of “pan”, open, accepting. Loved his music, enjoyed his mini=operas that were his story telling in videos which transformed an entire medium.
I was so looking forward to his return to a sold out 50 concerts show in London and now…. this.
Silence.
Not from the parasites, no, or the given bad taste in several Los Angeles based nobodies with shows, no they will try and attract the light all they can with stories. But the real fans, the ones that never turned their backs. THOSE fans will turn up in every corner of the world and remember and mourn.
His body transferred from helicopter barely gone three hours made me sob.
Here was this great young man, recluse, alone mostly, inaccessible being roughly transferred to a gurney by a bunch of strangers who probably would never have known him in life. Death an equalizer, now must crack another threshold for the autopsy will be today.
What did do this to him? Sure we want to know. I hope it was a cardiac problem rather than a sensational drug interaction or abuse. Elvis endured that craziness in his final days, and so many other great performers. Wish they knew how much joy they gave above all. How many people grew up listening and enjoying their great talents.
I really do hope their is comfort and solace for his dear family, his young children and his legions of friends and fans. And only oceans of light, gardens of light, and love for him.
Rest in peace and bask in the warmest and greatest spotlight you will ever know, the eternal light of love and peace.
Backstage a young Callas glances at her evolving self…..love this foto. But I wonder who is the foto on the table in front? Looks like Tebaldi or Simoniato? Why?
The eyes and voice of this man slay me. How friendly and handsome he is.
A true Verdi baritone, one of the absolute rarest. Here vivid and authentic in Verdi’s Macbeth.
The youngest shot I have ever seen of this giant. Mario Del Monaco- Here at his first Tosca I believe in Parma.
The perfect Gerard. Ettore Bastianini.
The chocolate deep voice of bass Cesare Siepi here elegant and athletic in Don Giovanni.
George London supremely expressive Boris.
Boris Christoff pensive and so real it seems as the King of Spain in Don Carlo.
Anita Cerquetti as Norma.
Renata Scotto IS butterfly.
The one and only Ebe Stignani.
and finally two new fotos of the gorgeous towering voice of Renata Tebaldi….. very Hollywoodiana in the first early still, and later fully evolved and fabulous as well, in floating Goddess style.
To hear her voice again gives me great emotion. To see how beautiful she is and remained until the last difficult days. To hear her speak of her momma and her early life. To hear her say to everyone that Tina was the second greatest gift after her voice and family of course, that God ever gave her, touches me greatly. Tina is one of kind and I adore her.
To hear about Toscanini and Del Monaco, her debut in Trieste and her mentioning Quadri, a great maestro with whom I did AIDA in Colorado. What he had forgotten most need to learn.
The little clip of her towering Butterfly of prodigious warmth and the perfect amplitude, it is all just a gift.
I had not seen this before. Paolo Limiti obviously adores her, he can barely stay in his own seat.
How very lovely to spend a little time with this great lady again.
I miss you so much. What a little hello.
This and Magda in one week.
I know what I will give thanks for on Sunday.
It makes such sense. Il Tabarro. Petrella and Gobbi ….have to find the tenor’s name.
Look at this lion on stage. the creation, the presence, the follow through, unapologetic dimension, love him so much. Gian Giacomo Guelfi in Nabucco. Thunder and lightening seem tame next to him.
Look how pretty and modern and ahead of her times. the real Sarah Bernhardt.
My first Mario Cavaradossi….. the impossibly handsome and beautiful voiced Giacomo Aragall…… is he real? How beautiful.
The very young, really handsome and great gentleman, Giuseppe Di Stefano.
Guess who? Stands out even then, first tall lad on the left with great shoulders and eyes. A young God, Franco Corelli.
She is so amazing. I called to tell her how much I enjoyed the filmetto of hers and the little piece of Francesca that she illuminated so gorgeously with her voice and expression at an appearance just recently and we had a fabulous conversation. I will never forget what she said….. she is a beacon.
We talked a bit about the “ballerina” size required of so many voices today….. and she said pay no mind to any talk, or current fads, keep your mind on the important things. The music, and the expression and the privilege you have in being able to serve that. She makes me cry.
“I take your arm and I hold on to it tightly, tightly, and when you sing, we are together upon that stage. I follow you and with a heart full of support, I pray God give you strength and courage, the music is everything….. Bocca lupo in all you do…..sono con te!”
How do you say thank you for something like what she just said. You don’t. You just renew your spirit, keep it humble, and keep on going.
Thank you dear and gracious Lord for so great an artist as this. To take time to impart words of support and encouragement, clarity about certain questions I asked. Admonishments to me about becoming distracted, and renewed concentration, “when you can do what you do, you must!” Aware that the art is entrusted to us, generation to generation and is not some “OLD” or “ludicrous” art but a breathing and amazingly alive means of expression even in today’s artificial times. Not to be insulted by it’s own servants, but cherished and transfigured by our own life histories and sounds and truth, and then, eventually, passed on to others.
And for her shining humanity….. a beacon of truth, and example, and God’s infinite beauty.
Thank you for this great conversation……. I needed it.
So much I would love to hold my Mother and tell her I love her and thank her. Four years ago today.
In her dreams, for three nights, she dreams of a white piece of paper with three lines and then a voice tells her to sing this aria, with the words “Paolo, datemi pace,,,,”. She says magnificently, “I must obey the voice….. and sing this great and powerful phrase from Fracesca Di Rimini….even if it not as I would have done years ago….”
Then she gives at 99 years old a perfect example….. of a heart beating in music full of love for the art, the music and for something more important than ourselves…. my god, thank you for this most amazing servant of yours who continues to astound and beguile and help bring us to the truth.
TRANSLATION: as best I can make out.
“I must give an explanation why I am here tonight in this stupenda room to sing? I must explain why I am here. For three nights I had a strange dream. A piece of white paper, with three black lines.
The first night only this.
The second night immediately again I see the same piece of paper with these words, that I couldn’t see, with a voice that said, “YOU MUST DO THIS!”.
I come to the third night, this same voice, this same paper, comes again to me, and then the voice says, “Remember, you must do this!” and I see the music of Francesca (da Rimini)…. this is a little bit but really in it is all of Francesca.
I thought for a moment and I said “I would adore to do this, but I do not sing anymore…. it’s not as if I am singing all the time…. I don’t sing anymore…. however this voice insists, “YOU must do this, it could be of service to someone…. or something”, exactly what I do not know….. but something, supernatural I am certain,how could it not be, that I thought the third night, rising from sleep, I said, “Paolo, datemi pace….”
Then I understood, it was truly this one unique phrase of Francesca di Rimini, that I loved immensely…. that I found myself in the same position on the couch, that I began little by little to sing softly the stupendous words….”Paolo, datemi pace..”
Then I said, I will do it….I will obey…. because in this case I must obey, this voice that perhaps will not come again to me… and so I ask your pardon, if I today give myself permission to present myself to you all to sing this one phrase from Francesca da Rimini….
It will be what it will be…. but I do with all my heart and for me thanks to God for all that my life that I have known, I ask only to excuse me if it is not like it was….. before…..ten years before……”
(when she was 88!)
I got off the internet and called her immediately to give thanks, what a great and gracious lady and an unforgettable “life force” in the service of music. Truth in music.
One of the five best speeches I ever heard, in my life.
What a hopeful start to a necessary thawing in that very holy region of the world. I am so awed by him, and loved that Hillary was there to help him as well.
Keeping watch from both sides…..
Amazing, Mr. President. “All the children of Abraham…..” what a great vision, what a great hope. Amen.
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