“Did you know that today is the birthday of the fabulously fabulous, always daring, rapier wit of the PARTERRE BOX?”

“Goodness sakes, you mean James Jorden? Of course!!”

“We must hurry and send the first wishes of excellence in everything on so important a day! What do you think La Cieca will be wearing?”

Happy Birthday to Mr. James Jorden, with respect and warmest wishes from the always “operatic” dimension of Aprile Millo

One of my very favorite voices singing the Schubert “Ave Maria” in a way I consider legato heaven, full of beauty and meaning, and close to God. The Great Marian Anderson.

One of the best sounds for a grammaphone if a little too fast to be accurate for pitch. Gigli showing his easy and natural phrasing and gorgeous sound.

Girl tenor RUBY HELDER sings “Eily Mavourneen” from Benedict’s Irish opera, “The Lily of Killarney”—in 1908. The petite girl had just passed her 12th birthday.

The recording was made as a Pathe cylinder. It was available in the U.S. in the form of a Pathe 10.75-inch disc #766.

This recording falls in the realm of “an operatic PARTY RECORD.” You have NEVER heard anything / anyone quite like this!

It’s a sad fact that few of the early Helder discs are found in good playing condition–
for three reasons:- they were played on early talking machines that tended to wear the records because of heavy pick-ups (tone arms), coupled with the reality that early disc-owners (playing Helder’s lateral discs) were reluctant to play just one record and then throw away the needle…. AND…. because Ruby’s recordings were so unusual, they received more playings than a disc might ordinarily receive.

Add to that mix the fact that some vintage talking machines didn’t track the grooves properly. U.S. Columbia machines tended to cause more wear than Victor machines.

Ruby Helder first stepped before the recording horn for the Pathe Company in 1908 to cut cylinder masters. When heard by the management of Pathe and then the general public, most didn’t believe this was the vocal art of a TWELVE-year-old GIRL who stood under 5 feet at the time and sounded like a MAN.

RUBY HELDER sings “Then You’ll Remember Me” from Balfe’s opera, The Bohemian Girl—in 1913. The disc is Columbia # 501. This recording falls in the realm of “an operatic PARTY RECORD.” Ruby Helder first stepped before the recording horn for the Pathe Company in 1908 to cut cylinder masters. When heard by the management of Pathe and then the general public, most didn’t believe this was the work of a 17-year-old GIRL, who stood under 5 feet tall at the time–as she sounds like a MAN.
While some references state that Helder was an “International Opera Star,” to the best of my knowledge, she never appeared in an opera. She sang arias in her concerts, which consisted largely of ballads and drawing-room songs of the period.
Like many British singers a century ago, the opera she sang was always in English. In addition to the BOHEMIAN GIRL aria presented here, the only other operatic Helder records are two discs of the principal TENOR arias from Martha and Faust.
Ruby Helder (1890-193 progressed from “Girl Tenor” when she first made four Pathe cylinders in 1908 to “The Lady Tenor,” when she was around 31.
She recorded for Pathe, HMV, Edison Bell, and Columbia. That said, there were only 21 titles ever made—between 1908 and June 1921.

She was born as Emma Jane Holder on March 3, 1890, at 7 Brooklyn Terrace in the Easton district of Bristol, UK.
Her father Thomas, a dairyman at the time, later became landlord of the nearby Glasshouse Pub, where little Emma would sing to entertain the regulars. From these humble beginnings, a unique singing career was launched. Encouraged to take formal singing and piano lessons, the young Emma Holder became Ruby Helder on finding out someone else in her class had the same surname.
This tiny child’s deep and powerful singing voice astonished everyone who heard her. Her aunt, housekeeper to the great Scottish music hall star Harry Lauder, made arrangements for Helder to train at the Guildhall School of Music under Charles Tinney, before she received tuition from one of the outstanding figures in British music, Charles Santley.
Helder began recording for Pathe as early as 1908, and in July 1909 made her first public appearance on the concert stage at the Queen’s Hall, London.
After making further records for Edison Bell, in 1911, Ruby signed a recording contract with HMV. By this time, her remarkable voice was known WORLDWIDE, and invitations to sing poured in from many countries, including Russia.
An American millionaire, Mrs. August Belmont, persuaded Ruby to cross the Atlantic in 1913 for the sole purpose of singing at one of her private parties.
The U.S. witnessed some of Helder’s greatest concert triumphs, esp. in Philadelphia and Chicago. In 1915, the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso took an interest in her career and introduced her to the management of the Metropolitan Opera in New York and suggested they offer Helder “supporting” tenor roles.
Management declined, fearful of engaging someone who might well be regarded as a freak.
Undeterred, she continued performing and recording a mixture of operatic pieces and light, sentimental music of the time, while pursuing further music studies at the Grinnell College Faculty, between 1916 and 1917.
While rehearsing at New York’s Hippodrome Theatre, the petite 5ft 3in Helder, sporting a bob hairstyle long before it became fashionable, attracted the attention of the legendary John Philip SOUSA. Impressed by her voice, she was invited to join his musicians, which she did and enjoyed a lengthy tour of the U.S. and Canada with Sousa’s Band.
In 1920, Helder returned to England with the eminent American architect and artist Chesley Bonestell, and they were married July 12. In 1925. To further both careers, they undertook an extensive tour of Italy, living in Florence mainly.
But her popularity had started to diminish Her last recording was made in 1921, and most catalogues no longer listed her earlier discs.
A Gramophone magazine review reflected the opinion of Helder’s abilities by certain critics.
“Miss Helder, if she will forgive my saying so, has a fresh voice, a tenor, yet not a tenor… it is quite lacking in the characteristic power and expression of the tenor’s top register.”
She and Bonestell returned to England before moving back to the U. S. in 1927, where they set up home in Berkeley, California. Helder made a number of radio broadcasts from New York in the late twenties, prior to announcing her retirement in 1935.
During this period she threw many lavish parties. But there was a price to pay for this high living, and on November 21, 1938, she died, aged just 48 years, at the Highland Hotel, Hollywood, after a long battle with alcoholism.

Britain’s world-famous lady tenor has not been completely forgotten in her birth city of Bristol. In June 2001, a plaque was unveiled at her birthplace by the city’s Lord Mayor.

Verdi’s choice for his premiere Otello can also sing Rossini. From Rossini’s opera ‘Guglielmo Tell’ Francesco Tamagno sings this 4th act aria. tamagno

Enrico Caruso, jr. The great Caruso (1873-1921) sired 4 sons, 2 died in infancy and 2 lived to maturity–Rodolfo, born in 1898, and Enrico Caruso, Jr., born 1904. Caruso, the elder, had a 10-year affair with operatic soprano Ada Giachetti, who abandoned the great tenor and his two sons in 1908.

The lads were denied few material advantages and were among his legal heirs.

When Caruso married in 1918, Enrico, Jr. came to live with his new family in the U.S. and attended Culver Military Academy. After his father’s death in 1921, he took voice lessons in L.A. with the possible goal of a career in opera, but eventually he discontinued study.

He moved to Hollywood where he starred in two Spanish-language films, “The Fortune Teller” in 1934…and “The Singer of Naples” in 1935.

In his latter days, Enrico, Jr. concentrated on writing a comprehensive biography of his famous father, which he completed shortly before his death.

Enrico Caruso, Junior died in Jacksonville, Fla., after suffering a heart attack–on Apr. 11, 1987.

Male soprano ALESSANDRO MORESCHI sings Tosti’s popular “Ideale,” 7-inch British Gramophone & Typewriter disc (#54758), recorded in the Sistine Chapel by recording pioneers Fred and Will Gainsberg–April 7, 1902. At that time, Moreschi was conductor of the Chorus of the Sistine Chapel, the Pope’s personal chorus.

Notice at the end of his solo, choir members give him “two thumbs up!”

Professor Moreschi is remembered in musical history as the only Castrato of the bel canto tradition to make solo recordings. Actually, by 1902, few others survived and no other was “in a condition” to make solo records.

In 1944, Fred Gainsberg, stated in an interview that Moreschi was obviously very nervous when making this 1902 recording. Literally, he was shaking in his shoes.

Alessandro Moreschi (Nov. 11, 1858— Apr. 21, 1922) probably was “altered” around 1865, in keeping with the old practice of castrating vocally-talented boys well before puberty. Castration of young males was banned by law in 1870.

Moreschi’s singing abilities became known to a former member of the Sistine Chapel choir who took him to Rome in about 1870. In 1873, when 15, he was appointed First Soprano in the choir of the Papal basilica
of San Giovanni Laterano. Thereafter, he was auditioned by all members of the Sistine Chapel choir and appointed First Soprano there, a post he held for the next 30 years.

When Moreschi joined the Sistine choir, there were still six other castrato members, but none was capable of sustaining this work’s taxing soprano tessitura.

Moreschi’s star status sometimes seems to have turned his head: “His behavoir was often capricious enough to make him forget proper professional bearing, as sometimes after a concert he paraded himself among the crowd like a peacock, with a long white scarf, waiting to be congratulated.”

In 1898, he celebrated 25 years as a member of the Sistine choir. What happened thereafter is too long a tale to relate here, but the next Pope took a dim view of Castrato singers and forbade Moreschi from making any more solo recordings when the recording machine was again brought to the Vatican in 1904. In all, there were 17
discs cut in the 2-aession Sistine Choir series.

Officially, Alessandro was a member of the Sistine Choir until Easter 1913; he remained in the choir of the Cappella Giulia of St Peter’s, Rome, until a year after that. He then retired and died shortly before his 64th birthday.

When 55, he was described as of small or medium stature, beardless, with a
speaking voice having a metallic quality, like a very high-speaking tenor. His voice and demeanour make a youthful impression.

The words.

The complete color from top to bottom with slight brightening in the extreme top. Perfetto.

The amplitude and ease.

No shouting, you can the echo of the immense size after the notes.

Legato for days, and exclamatory master class.

Enjoy, young mezzos most especially and everyone who loves great singing.

I have a thing for Knights and their images…….

and gorgeous……

One of my constant and mostly happy memories of childhood center around the family being together, relatively peaceful, and listening to music. My mom loved Jeanette MacDonald films and Nelson Eddy films and so we would traipse to the Vanguard theater, or the vintage theater to see their films. Now every time I see or hear one of their many wonderful lush melodies, I have to say, I get a little misty-eyed.

These excerpts from Smiling Through, one of my mommas favorite songs, and the ending of the fabulous “Maytime”, with their reunion.

May I take a moment of pure selfish sentimentality?

My Mom in the last years of her colorful life fought against colon cancer, which went un detected even after colonoscopies. “They missed it…”. She had a way of making chemo look merry and okay so her kids wouldn’t be afraid. A cup of hot chocolate and graham crackers in the Memorial Sloan Kettering lobby awaiting the poison thought to prolong life. She made it okay when we were told there was nothing left they could do.

Her face was so beautiful and radiant and AWARE. She knew, she was scared as any of us would be. But she weathered it with great humor and heartbreaking sweetness. Hospice in my home; the sound of the oxygen machine oddly reassuring.

The thought of this world without her? Quite frankly, I have been in the dark for a few years now, and only feeling her constant presence keeps the feet moving, and of course her greatest gift to me, and Dad’s gift to me, Opera, keeps the soul full of hope.

The fog is lifting and the call to arms is loud. I hope she helps me.

I hope my mother passed over full of music and in her mind sitting under that bower of roses by bendemeer stream, a song she used to love to sing like no one else, listening to the tune of the Nightingale, with a walk way of cherry blossom trees and the wind driven lanes filled with leaves strewn about and that all of her loved ones came and took her Home.

Who is to say it doesn’t happen like this?

Those who love music are more sensitive to it’s magic.

Maybe it is our golden ticket to a good end, as they say in the Legends of the Fall, with the wonderful Indian Voice, the enigmatic character Tristan’s best friend, best mirror, best reflection of himself, (Brad Pitt amazing and handsome), “He had a good death….”

I pray, as I think of my Mom and Dad and Step Dad, and Grandma,and other family, as well as Luciano and Beverly and my dear Renata and Zinka, as well as the Divine Muzio and Callas, I hope they made a good crossing. With all that music in their hearts, I am SURE they did.

Tinkel Vesel-Polla, soprano “Caro Nome” 1928= very personal but quite accomplished bel canto.

This week we hear the grand old fellow of Bayreuth is finally to abdicate his “throne” to one of his family. Most likely a contentious but never boring trio.

New York Times story by Anne Midgette

“We’ve been having difficult discussions about this since 2001,” Thomas Goppel, the Bavarian minister for science, culture and art, told reporters in Bayreuth yesterday. “Now at last . . . we can think about the future of the house of Wagner.”

I chose to remember here a long standing genius of the “old world” Wagner, soprano Martha Moedl. The first clip is an interview with Madame Moedl and two other great Bayreuth Prima Donne, Nilsson and Varnay.

The second is a clip from her 50th anniversary gala performance of Pique Dame in Vienna.

The last a bit of the welcome after on stage from those grateful for her fifty years of stunning service.

She is 80 years young in the final two clips. Bravissima.

This beautiful voice that sang with Muzio, and according to the youtube info for her died in 1980 being murdered in a metro station in Chicago. Breaks my heart, as this is a first class instrument that worked with Raisa, John Charles Thomas, and Flagstad. Two lovely people are being inerviewed, graciously, by someone not listed. Her life escaping the German horror as a Jew, with such a tragic ending of her life, is an opera in itself. What a great sound though, listen as she lives again in the wonder of this cyber world. Maria Hussa….

Soprano MARIA HUSSA, Austrian/American, 83 years old, in Chicago 4/19/80.
In 1917 she made her debut at the Vienna Volksoper, and appeared at the Vienna Staatsoper the following year. She sang in Berlin from 1923 to 1926, and was a member of the Hamburg State
Opera 1926-32, where she assumed major roles.

During that time she also sang the soprano leads in the premieres of Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane and Respighi’s La Campana sommersa. She emigrated to the United States in 1934, sang the role of the Marschallin at the Metropolitan Opera in 1940, and the same role as well as Sieglinde in Chicago during the same season. Later she taught at the Sherwood Music School.

SPc photo by Willinger Wien of the smiling soprano Wien 1936. She was a pupil of Elizza and sang in Vienna, Prague and all the German houses including Hamburg 1926-1932 where she created Korngold’s “Der Wunder der Heliane” and Resphigi’s “La Campana Sommersa”. She emigrated to Chicago in the late 1930s sang with the Chicago Opera and one Marschallin at the Met in 1940. She opened a successful voice studio in the windy city and lived there till 1980. Some Homochord and HMV records. Lovely artist.

Click on title of MP3- Millo below
charlie-church-music-old-movie

A fabulous clip from Youtube.com, what is fast becoming the last bastion for real opera lovers to see a marvelous array of opera splendor not over hyped in today’s way and really having something very special.

This is a selection from the Gala in honor of Rudolph Bing. Look at the white tie and tail coats on almost all the board members. The incoming Mr. Gentele, who actually was the man who signed my first contract. He seemed a lovely and articulate man. We will never know what wonderful things he would have done, as he died in a car crash before being able to begin his tenure.

The orders of some wonderful honor either from Austria or Paris or the British monarchy, hang around Sir Rudolph Bing’s neck and his pride evident but his horror of exposed emotion.

My childhood was filled with reading his books, the first I believe was called, “5000 Nights at the Opera” being the one I read most. His fierce devotion to giving the Met the best and the brightest stars, travel to Europe brought us all the stars from Italy and Germany. Tebaldi, being my favorite. He searched for the best voices and the best voices being those who could really sing their specialities and he brought them to the Met.

I was so thrilled that he was a fan, and wasted no time telling me so. He had seen the second Boccanegra, the first Ernani of my Met career, the first Trovatore, and Aida in the Parks. He always came back after the crowds had gone, or found me at a gathering or dinner party soon after to tell me his opinions and ideas of repertoire. Until he was not himself, suffering from some kind of onset dementia towards the end of his life and his last marriage, I was thrilled for his interest, his praise and his counsel.

The elegance of opera remains in it’s music, it’s desire to serve music and the composer, and in some naturally elegant people today. All too often we are asked to dumb ourselves down, shy away from the beautiful accoutrement of the “old fashioned” singer, eshewing tail coats, and patent leather shoes for leather pants and no tie, perhaps a silk shirt or without jacket.

It’s all good perhaps, but for me, this is the opera I had in my house, elegant men and women dressed with great respect for their positions as artists, the men in suits and tie to rehearse. The maestri always eager and knowledgeable to help you and your own unique gifts and how to best use them while in service to the composer. It felt “blessed”. THEY adapted to the talent knowing full well there was never only ONE way of singing something.

Enjoy this lovely moment in Met History, and in the life of Sir Rudolph.

Further explore opera’s importance in world events, in Austria for the then reopening of the State theater just after the war. You will see how much national pride was reawakened by Beethoven’s “Fidelio”, with the fabulous Martha Moedl…….a whole other world.

Then go to another world exactly in the heavenly throat of Renata Tebaldi in G. Verdi’s masterpiece Requiem. The heaven on earth of one of the voices Mr. Bing fought to bring to America, the true Voce D’Angelo, Renata Tebaldi in a 1951 Verdi Requiem that will take your breath away.

Who didn’t love Franco Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet”. I was ruined with Leonard Whiting. How absolutely beautiful he is.

Apollo Granforte had one of the truest baritones for my liking. Rich, nuanced, every word understood and given gorgeous color and meaning. These clips are included also to show how great the orchestras were in those days, for the knowledge of how it is played, also the perfect body of every note, cleanly played, and “hearable”. So much is glossed over in robot like speed today with orchestra’s always playing actually too fast, this is a rare chance to hear the music closer to when it was written.

Here follows a little info on this great singer.

Apollo Granforte (1886 - 1975)
Born into a poor family he worked as a cobbler until he was 18. He moved to Argentinia with his brother. There he worked in his trade he had learnt, but soon his vocal capabilities were discovered, and he concentrated on singing.

He enrolled as a student at The Buenos Aires Conservatory and studied for nine years! In 1913 he made his debut as Germon-père at the Opera of Santa Fe. Subsequently he sang at various opera houses in South America.

At the beginning of the war, he returned to Italy to fight at the front for Italy. In 1916 he appeared at The Teatro Costanzi in Rome and at The Teatro da Verme in Milan. In 1921 he was engaged to La Scala, and stayed there as a member until 1939.

He frequently appeared as a guest artist in Paris. Nellie Melba chose him for an Australia tour with her own troup, he was also a guest at London Covent Garden. He took part in several Wagner operas, in roles such as Wotan, Kurwenal, Telramund and The Wanderer.

He also succeeded as Jochanaan and Boris Godunov. After retiring he became a singing coach in Ankara. For a brief span he was also the director of the National Theatre in Prague. Afterwards he returned to Italy where he became a sought-after advisor on all matters related to singing.

The Trovatore clip, listen to the chorus as well. They are amazing, every word and note is clear.
The Rigoletto, at unusally slow tempi still catches fire because of his tone and denunciation.

and for sheer beauty and singing quality.

This interstellar beast is formed of cosmic dust and gas interacting with the energetic light and winds from hot young stars. The shape, visual texture, and color, combine to give the region the popular name Fox Fur Nebula. The characteristic blue glow on the left is dust reflecting light from the bright star S Mon, just beyond the left edge of the image. Mottled pink and brown areas are a combination of the cosmic dust and reddish emission from ionized hydrogen gas. S Mon is part of a young open cluster of stars, NGC 2264, located about 2,500 light years away toward the constellation of Monoceros, just north of the Cone Nebula.

Have written elsewhere my great love this piece of music, here with Heifetz, it becomes a great “voice”.

The second clip, with no less than two greats, Szeryng/Rubinstein - Beethoven Sonata #5 “Spring” Mvt.1-in its articulation between the notes, so perfect, recalls Callas’ vocal movement in bel canto virtuoisimi. So perfect and calibrated, each note literally a pearl.

Then a rare treat, Gigli singing from Verdi’s Aida, last act duet, “O terra addio!”
and a brief but fabulous rare Otello phrase, “Esultante!”.

One of my favorite theaters, great public and long history, Teatro Colon di BA, Argentina.

Palais Garnier, Paris, so very beautiful. Every theater listed I have sung a recital or opera in except Bayreuth, and St. Petersberg. The latter will be next year, under discussion, a return to Russia.

My mom had sent my sister and I to the Lachine Ballet Studio in Los Angeles, twice a week, and I must say I loved it and kept at it for about 4 years. Loved the feeling.

One day we are coming to class and my teacher, who by this time was a great friend, called me and said, “Everyone is screaming here, Ginger Rogers is rehearsing…..”. Terry knew I was a huge fan of hers.

Happily it would be around the time I would be there, so it occurred that at the top of the long stairs to enter the studio inside, La Rogers looked like spun silver at the top of the stairs, or the woman in the old Columbia Pictures opening stills with the torch.

I nodded to her, and she nodded back and I resolved to wait and respect her privacy.

For a little while.

Then we all got to peek at her rehearsal for what would be her return to London. The big studio with all the dancers and she singing away. They took a break and I made a dash.

“Miss Rogers?” the inflection straight out of a 1920’s movie. “I say, Miss Rogers….”

Well, I must have been perfect as she whipped around and said, “Yes….”

None of this forget your fans, and silly nonsense of today, she came right over.

I launched into my mini tribute to her, quickly but old fashioned praise, and finished with, you positively look lit from within…..and some such thing.

She looked happy at the praise but a little surprised. “How old are you? I know I shouldn’t ask….”
with a wink.

I was all of 17, 18. “My goodness, you speak like someone from the MGM publicity department back in my day, the way they used to write……thank you so much….. wanna see me rehearse?” and there I sat watching and clapping for someone I adored in movies and as a dancer and actress.

She would be forever my “Lucky Lady” for over the years she would always seem to appear when something great was going to happen to me. “Some people are that for some people” she laughed once when I told her that.

Either way, being close up in her face after a warm hello, and so aware without the “fans we wouldn’t be anyone….” she glowed. The face looked like it sizzled. No other word.

Positively electric. The color of her eyes, so pure blue, full of personality and hail fellow well met, and her hair at the time was a true blondish silver. She was radiant.

This picture came my way today, from my “Lucky Lady”, still appearing after all these years.

I’ll let you know what happens.