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Marilyn
Horne was the most revered American mezzo-soprano of her
generation, and still is to this day as she teaches master classes
across the country. She was an acclaimed Rossini mezzo, singing La
Cenorentola and Rosina with equal élan, but was also a killer Carmen,
Dalila, Eboli, and Azucena. One of her first professional gigs was
to provide "suplimental takes" for Dorothy Dandridge's singing
voice in Carmen Jones, and legend has it that she was once
schmoozing with a little drunken fat lady at a Hollywood party, only to
find out later that this little drunken fat lady was none other than Judy
Garland. When she discovered that the set to Leonard
Bernstein's Met production of Carmen was to be built entirely out
of sound-absorbing carpet, she merely cooed "Ve ladies from Sveden
don't like zis" (a reference to Birgit
Nilsson) and the management quickly had the design scheme
changed. In her La Scala debut (singing Jocasta in
Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex), Horne was costumed in a giant egg,
which prevented her from hearing anything. However, this was not
the end of her costuming troubles, because for her Met debut (in
which she was to sing Adalgisa in Norma), her costume was
made of gold-lamé. She bellowed, "I'm supposed to be a
vestal virgin, goddammit, not Sophie Tucker!" Needless
to say, that costume was changed... |
