Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Opera singer who performed Salome at Covent Garden and Princess Abelie in Don Carlos.
On the island
Eight records
is is something really quite special for me because w way back when I was a student at Boston University it was one of my very favorite songs. This is nineteen fifty five and uh it's something quite very special and very p private for t for me.
Impromptu in G flat major, D. 899 No. 3Favourite
In nineteen sixty I was engaged in Basel at the Opera Hausday, and I happened to turn the radio on one afternoon. and I heard this pianist playing. And I thought, Mm, who is that? It is absolutely fantastic. I never heard such a beautiful, beautiful piano before.
I love the words to this song. And I like uh Shirley Bass's interpretation because I I find it very feminine, and I like also the beat.
I like the song very much because it's kind of uh uh sweet sour. Tells a lot about uh the Italian male.
Well, the words are absolutely depictive. I don't have to tell you anything else.
Pleurez, mes yeux (from Le Cid)
This is a recording we did um last year. At the Carnegie Hall in live performance, and I think it's really quite a beautiful recording.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:04How well could you adapt yourself to loneliness for a long time?
Oh, I could get along for a long time, because uh I'm accustomed to being alone. As a little girl I was uh I was always long,'cause I was I was the only d daughter in the family. My I have two brothers who are older, and they were always busy doing boys' things, you know. And I had to had to maintain myself. … So I can get along very well on the island as long as I have my my records and my book.
Presenter asks
5:29Did you come from a musical family?
Well, professionally not, but uh yes quite musical. My my mother sang, my father sang, my father plays the piano and organ. My brother Charles plays the uh the trombone, Benjamin plays the drums, I play the drums and uh Benjamin sings yes, I think it's quite musical. There's a lot of noise around our house.
Presenter asks
6:43How did you come to sing on the local radio station?
Well, I did um an audition for a for a competition among all the high school students in uh in Saint Louis. I mean, about five hundred students I think they were of all of all the the schools in Saint Louis. And uh I was chosen as the winner and of course and then I was to do um two weeks of of uh radio work there. And then I was sent off to New York to audition for The Godfrey Show, Arthur Godfrey Show. And uh I was winner of the Alpha Godfrey Show and then Well, this I did some television work there and radio work there in New York, and then things began to move on. And as a result of this orthography show, I. uh received a scholarship to to Boston University. And uh then I went from Boston University to North Western University and then that's where I met Madame Lehmann, Lotte Lehmann.
The keepsakes
The book
Giuseppe Verdi
There's an awful lot of information in that book. that could keep my mind occupied for a long length of time.
The luxury
Presenter asks
13:48When did you decide that you were really a soprano?
Whenever he decided it I j I just decide to sing those things that fit my voice. At one time uh voi my uh my voice was uh lower. … But there came a point when I felt that this th this particular opera I wanted to sing, I studied it, it fit my voice and I sang it. Then um I really think that people saw or heard something in my voice which I didn't hear. … I never really gave it any serious thought of expanding my repertoire until around about nineteen sixty eight.
Presenter asks
18:42As a singer, what sort of discipline do you impose on yourself? How much do you practise every day?
Well, I tr I I try to vocalize ev every day, certainly twenty minutes, except for the day after performance c because I don't want to uh tax the voice too much, because I feel that the voice has has has had enough work to do uh the night of of a performance. So that next day I don't work. But uh then vocalizing comes every day that I don't have to sing. And uh then on days when I really have to learn music, then sometimes I have to study Four, five, six hours. Not vocally all the time. I'm like, I sit at the piano, or I might do memory work, or I might uh Just learn things musically.
Presenter asks
20:50Would you try to escape from this island?
If you have snakes and tarantulas, and then I would try to escape, yes, as best I could.
“I started with the piano, yes. I was put to it. But didn't mi I mean, later on I didn't mind it, but but at the very beginning I I I really d was was was very hard put to start take those studies, but, um after four years, I think, I began to like it.”
“I've dropped almost all the mezzo roles except for uh Aboli and Amneris. And I think for very special reasons. First of all, because my my uh operatic debut was with uh Amneris and of course um Aboli I find to be very special and uh and it always has been very special for me.”
“For an opera like Salome I like to have thirty six hours of absolute quiet. And I don't talk on the telephone, I don't talk to anybody. Everything that is to be said is is written.”