Fascinating and tragic:

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.

Nearer my God to thee

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

This is the respect opera deserves

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.

Tebaldi tribute: what a stimme.

My cherished notion

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

Baritonal splendor

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.

Fox Fur Nebula

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.

Violin like the voice~Gigli sings Radames/Otello

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!”.

Such beautiful theaters I love to sing in

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.

Teatro Colon di Buenos Aires

Palais Garnier

La Fenice, Venice

Vienna Staats Oper

Royal Opera House Covent Garden

Metropolitan Opera-HOME

Teatro alla Scala di Milano

Teatro Comunale di Bologna

San Carlo di Napoli

Teatro Regio di Parma

Teatro dell'Opera-Roma

Bayreuth

Teatro Bellini di Catania

Liceu of Barcelona

Palais Garnier

St. Petersberg

Royal Opera House-London

State Theater (Statni) Prague

Teatro San Carlo-Naples

le purr-le sigh-looking out into the theaters!

Meeting Ginger Rogers

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.