A Sad Commentary on our Times

A dear old friend of mine from my days in New York City years ago used to say when something untoward happened, 'It's a sad commentary on our times'.

I was recently asked to perform with a young singer at a benefit cocktail party. After the food and drink and a couple of speeches, we were announced and she began to sing.

People continued talking as if someone had merely turned on a radio. One woman actually finally said 'We are really enjoying your singing even though we're talking.'

No kidding.

Apparently people have become so used to having background music in elevators, super markets, and their IPods, that the idea of a real person singing before them is an oxymoron.

Even at the Met, there is always some idiot in the balcony who screams out 'Bravi' before the last high note is out of the tenor's mouth.

I remember seeing Christa Ludwig sing 'Morgen' of Richard Strauss a few years back. At the end, during the piano postlude, she stood with her eyes closed and her hands clasped before her. No one dared utter a sound until she moved one finger, at which point, there was an ovation.

I have seen the same thing happen with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. At the end of performances of her husband's incredible Neruda Songs, no one dared clap for several seconds.

I realise that these cases are more formal venues than singing at a cocktail party, but talking so loudly while someone is singing that the pianist can't hear the singer is really beyond the pale.

Miss Manners, please help!!

Sing On! Sing On!, and she did!

One of the most beautiful voices on the stage today. Cornflower blue eyes that matched the stunning necklace she wore with her black ensemble. Angelic blond hair. She strode on stage to thunderous applause and proceeded to wow the packed house at the Mahaiwe Theatre in Great Barington, Massachusetts. Her voice is a little lower but no less appealing, she is a good bit larger than her days as 'Marian the Librarian', but Barbara Cook is a hard act to follow. Oh, she's 83!

We were lucky enough to be in the front row for tonight's performance and I'm so glad we were. For an hour and a half Barbara Cook commanded the stage, backed by her very able trio. No 'Glitter and be Gay' anymore, but a wonderful repertoire of songs by an amazing panoply of composers. Her intense investment in each song was palpable. In one sad song by Alec Wilder, tears slipped down her cheeks. This is hard to fake on stage.

Her voice, now singing in a lower tessitura, still held that youthful beauty I remember when I saw her in The Music Man and She Loves Me all those years ago. Her patter was as intriguing as her singing. She lambasted Catherine Zeta Jones for her performance in A Little Night Music; a well-deserved criticism. I heard Jones sing 'Send in the clowns' on the Tonys and couldn't believe that she was given the award for best actress in a musical! As Barbara said: 'I have never seen so much acting going on on any stage!'. Acting but no singing.

Barbara Cook, on the other hand, is all about singing. It is rare to find a singer at 83 years of age who can convince you she is 23! But Barbara does it in spades.

Many of her songs were familiar show tunes but she also had chosen some really 'out-there' pieces, which she delivered with verve.

Needless to say, there was a standing ovation at the end of the show from the packed house. What is it that keeps us old timers coming back on stage? Yes, I place myself in the same generation as Barbara and I, too, am still performing. It's the love that floods over us from the audience as we stand there in a spotlight having done what we were born to do.

I wrote a book called Sing On! Sing On! some years ago. It is all about keeping one's voice beautiful and healthy right into what I now laughingly call OLD AGE. I doubt if Barbara ever read it, but she didn't need to. Here's to lots more years of hearing her sing as beautifully as she did tonight.

At one point she remarked that she has been told that she was a part of the Golden Age on Broadway. She said she didn't realize that at the time. She was too busy worrying about her hair and her figure. She said that when she looks back at pictures of herself from that era, she looked gorgeous. She then said ,'I guess when I'm a hundred and two, I'll look back at today and think the same thing.' No question!! Sing On...and on and on, Barbara!

Le nozze di Figaro, old style

Yesterday we decided to watch a DVD of Le Nozze di Figaro that was filmed at Glyndebourne in 1973. I had watched it before, but it reminded me of the wonderful singing that was going on in that generation of artists. The London Philharmonic Orchestra was directed by John Pritchard and the cast included Knut Skram in the title role, Ileana Cotrubas as Susanna, Kiri Te Kanawa as the Countess, Benjamin Luxon as the Count and Frederica von Stade as Cherubino. Now where would you find a cast like that today?

Remarkable singing was the norm in this performance. Knut Skram, the Norwegian baritone sang with a fine vocal technique and physical agility that made him an ideal Figaro. The wonderful Ileana Cotrubas impressed me again as one of the finest lyric sopranos I have ever heard. Her beauty of tone was matched by her flawless technique. She was radiant in the role. I saw her many times at the Met and was always impressed with her artistry.

Kiri Te Kanawa was elegant and in fine voice as the Countess. This was relatively early in her career, as it was with the other singers, and she has gone on to become a legend in Mozart and Strauss operas. Her Marshallin was a joy to remember. Her recent brief appearance at the Met in La Fille du Régiment showed some wear on the voice, but she brought off what is usually just a speaking role brilliantly and added a song, which the Duchess doesn't usually sing.

My good friend, Ben Luxon, was in his glory as the Count. His rich baritone voice and his amazing presence on stage, electrified the role. Frederica von Stade was in her prime as Cherubino and sang very well.

The thing that struck me about the singing was that, especially in the case of the sopranos, no one seems to be able to sing like that any more. Seamless lines, natural vibrato, gorgeous spinning tone. Today's crop of Divas seems to go for loud and wobbly. Bring back the good old days!

I know that I have been spoiled by the wonderful singers I have heard in my 80 years, but this listening experience brought back many happy memories of the Golden Age of singing, 20th Century style. Today's young singers should listen to some of these great artists who no longer are on the operatic stage. Some of today's voice teachers should probably do the same!

The Incredible Helen

I have been spending a rainy Berkshire afternoon listening to what is possibly the most beautiful voice of the twentieth century, Helen Traubel. My friend Richard Dyer, who loves her singing as much as I do, sent me three CDs of performances by her, gleaned from several sources. Richard, I am ever in your debt.

This is a voice that is seamless from top to bottom. In the low register she sounds like a warm, creamy mezzo-soprano or even a contralto. As the voice moves up in the range, all of that cream is still there but the ease with which she takes her brilliant high notes is heart-stopping. She has endless breath. And she knows how to spin the tone. 'Spinning the tone' is a phrase I heard often in my own early vocal studies. No one seems to remember how to do it any more. It goes beyond the natural vibrato in the voice. Traubel had a very light vibrato, unusual in such a large voice. But the tone always moved. It simply poured effortlessly from that ample body into the world of music. This is what vocal 'spinning' is all about. I try to pass this concept on to my own students.


In listening to her Brahms songs especially, I was near tears hearing the way she caressed every note and every phrase without ever loosing line, legato, or the sense of messa di voce. Her presentation of the emotional text was perfect. She is what I call a 'true' singer. She removes herself from the equation and allows the music and the text to pour out from her in the most compelling manner. 

Olga Averino, one of my mentors, used to say, 'Get out of the way of the music. Don't put yourself in the middle'. She said of one of my students, whose singing she loved, 'Mary becomes the song.'

Traubel always 'became the song!. Her Wagner was always magnificent and it is a shame that the Met didn't allow her to do more of that when she sang there. That is what singing should be about. That is what Traubel always did.

Kirsten Flagstad was THE Wagnerian soprano at the Met at that time and got all the best roles. I also heard and admired Flagstad's singing, (I had standing room for her farewell performance in Fidelio at the old Met in 1950) but her voice had that icy, Nordic quality that, while exciting, did not have the heat and warmth of Traubel's voice.

The quality I hear in the voice of Helen Traubel is something I seldom encounter in today's singers. I admit to prejudice when I say that my dear Lorraine Hunt Lieberson embodied many of the same wonderful qualities that Traubel had. She became the song. She knew how to spin her tone. She was a 'True' singer. I think Richard would agree with me on this statement. I know that he loved Lorraine's singing as much as I did.


Too many of today's sopranos sing for effect. There is very little truth in what they are producing. There is no 'spin' in their voices. This is why so many of them are affected by unpleasant wobbles instead of natural vibratos. There are very few that I want to listen to these days. Maybe I should offer a course in 'tone spinning'. I wonder if anyone would come?

Richard, I thank you profoundly for this wonderful gift of music. It brought back into my life someone who was an early idol in a most poignant way and whose singing I cherish.

GLAD vs DOMA

I feel the need to say something about the decision that was handed down yesterday afternoon by Judge Joseph Tauro in the Boston District Federal Court. His opinion was that DOMA is unconstitutional. Finally! I have been involved in this case for two years with GLAD. I realise that this will probably go all the way to the Supreme Court, but I am elated that we have passed this first hurdle.

Thank you Judge Tauro.

My war effort

For some summer reason, I seem to be going through a ruminative period as regards my ill-spent youth.

It has come to mind that perhaps I should write about my experience in World War II in the USO. I was in the 9th grade when some imaginative woman in Battle Creek decided that it was a good idea to put together a group of young people to entertain 'the boys'. Near Battle Creek we had Fort Custer (Army), Kellogg Air Base (US Air Force), Gull Lake (a Coast Guard unit, believe it or not), and Percy Jones General Hospital. The latter had originally been the Kellogg Sanitarium, famous for years for various healing methods devised by Dr. John Kellogg, brother of the cereal giant, W.K. Kellogg, who was also in Battle Creek.

This woman put together a show, I guess you'd call it, with a girl singer, a tap dancer, an accordion player, a monologist (fancy word for a pretty dreadful single act), and me. I played the piano for everyone.

My parents would drive me to the main USO Club on Capital Avenue a couple of nights a week, where our little band of youthful performers would meet. We would then be driven to various USO clubs in the area: Marshall, Kalamazoo, Augusta, and so on, as well as the several that were located in Battle Creek.

Our singer, Joan, had a very pretty alto voice, and sang 'I'll be seeing you', 'Sentimental Journey', and the other popular ballads of the forties. Our dancer, Brenda, would tap her way through a couple of numbers and our accordionist, quite a virtuoso, whose name I think was Jean, would wow everyone with 'The Carnival of Venice'.


Then would come our monologist. Her act left quite a bit to be desired. Several of her pieces required singing. Unfortunately, she was no singer. However, she always made a hit with 'the boys', since she flounced her skirts about showing a great deal more than was usually seen in public. The boys loved her. So much for ART!


We would sometimes be taken to Percy Jones General Hospital or to the Hospital at Fort Custer where they had upright pianos on dollies, which were wheeled from ward to ward. This was a sobering event for us youngsters. Men, not much older than we were, with no arms or legs. In wheelchairs or in beds. Just lying there happy to have any entertainment available. Even such as we could provide. It brought the true meaning of War to us at that very impressionable age.


By performing this often at such an early age, I very soon developed a feel for being 'on stage'. It was a great experience for me. I hope it helped the war effort. At least I know that we made a few young men happy.

Lucilla Udovich, my Roman Diva

In 1982 John and I decided to take a sabbatical from teaching. That is, he took a sabbatical from Harvard and I stopped teaching for three months, which is not quite the same thing.

We spent most of two months exploring the Iberian Peninsula at a time when it was still like stepping back into history.


After a brief foray into Provence with a friend, we returned to Barcelona with no definite plans in mind. A travel agent across the street from our hotel, the Astoria, was advertising a very reasonable ten-day trip to Rome. We had been to Rome several times but thought, 'Why not?'

A dear friend and student of mine, a Sister of St. Joseph from Milton, had told us that if we got to Rome we simply MUST look up her friend Lucille Udovich, an opera singer she had met some years before when she was studying in Italy.


Looking up friends of friends has never been a hobby of mine, but after a week in Rome, with sore feet from too much walking, and only one pair of shoes between the two of us that were comfortable (we wore them on alternate days) we called this opera singer friend of my student.

She issued a very cordial invitation to come out to her apartment on the outskirts of Rome for the afternoon. We took a bus that left from the Vatican and went out to her suburb, a very lovely garden area on the edge of Rome.

My student had told me that Lucille's career had been halted because of back problems she had encountered. After having sung in major opera houses all over Europe, her back problems were severe enough that she could no longer stand to sing comfortably and had had to retire.

We entered the lovely garden area that surrounded her apartment building and saw, waving from a balcony, our Diva. She waved for us to come up in the elevator to her second floor apartment that she shared with her sister, Ann.


She met us at the elevator door on her walker. Her back problems had reached the point where she needed this support to get around.

She was most cordial and fixed cool drinks for us right away. As we chatted, we began to learn her story: how she had come to New York from California in the late forties, been cast in the Rogers and Hammerstein Allegro, went on to be cast in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Carol Channing (which we had actually seen) and eventually had come to Milano to study with some Maestro or other. On a train going to Rome, she had been talking with another singer who urged her to sing for Beniamino Gigli, the great tenor. Upon hearing her sing, he said, 'I'm taking you on my concert tour of Italy as my guest artist'. And her career was launched.

For years she sang major roles in the principle opera houses of Italy: Tosca, Turandot, Aida. She had a magnificent dramatic soprano voice. Her video of Turandot  with Franco Corelli is the best singing of that role I have ever heard, bar none! And I've heard Sutherland sing it and lots of other fine sopranos. Lucilla, as the Italians called her, is the greatest by far. Even in the filming of this opera, one can notice that in the inquisition scene, she sits for a part of the questioning. Her back was already giving her problems.


After chatting for a while, John asked her if she would sing for us.  She demurred, saying, 'Let me see'. After a bit, when he asked again, she said if we would help her get set up she would sing. We got her music stand ready and she found the songs and arias she wanted to sing, and for two hours of bliss, I played the piano and she sang! Everything. Sibelius songs, operatic arias- it was wonderful. Her luscious voice embracing these melodies, sitting, singing at a music stand, was an experience I shall never forget.


When we finished with the singing, I said to her, 'Lucille, you must sing in public.' She said, 'How can I? I can't stand that long.' And I said,'Then sing sitting down!


At that point we made plans for her to come back to America and sing 'sitting down'. We did a number of concerts on the East Coast. In each case the stage was arranged with a 'Throne' for her to sit on while she sang. The curtain would be closed at the beginning. As the lights came on and the curtain parted, Lucille was found seated on her Throne in a gorgeous gown and I was already seated at the piano. The concerts were wonderful. One of the great moments in my professional life.


She also gave Master Classes for my students in New Jersey and at Harvard that were amazing.


This wonderful woman died a few years ago. We kept in touch with her lovely sister Annie. When we were in Rome at a later time we took Annie to dinner at a place that was a favorite for all of us, Scolio di Frisio. Annie and Lucille used to live across the street from this restaurant and Lucille would sometimes sing there, displacing the typical Italian tenor who usually sang there. We wanted to treat Annie to a lovely dinner and ordered everything on the menu.


At the end of the meal, which went on for several hours, I summoned the waiter for il conto. He whispered something in Annie's ear and departed. They would not take any money for our evening. The son of the original owner then came by the table and we all wept about Lucille's passing and had our pictures taken together. It was a lovely end to a beautiful friendship.


Annie kept in touch for years after Lucille died and passed away herself just two years ago.

This is the true meaning of serendipity. A chance meeting, a long-lasting musical and emotional relationship with a great person.