Sweet and low
Gender-bending diseuse Zarah Leander crosses over into opera to sing "Che farò senza Euridice" in this scene the 1938 film Heimat.
It may be noted that the sub-contralto Leander chooses a lower key for this aria than the written C major David Daniels will sing tomorrow night! For more about the iconic Zarah, see Ben Letzler's appreciation of the androgyne goddess.
It may be noted that the sub-contralto Leander chooses a lower key for this aria than the written C major David Daniels will sing tomorrow night! For more about the iconic Zarah, see Ben Letzler's appreciation of the androgyne goddess.
Labels: camp, countertenor, crossover, daniels, drag, gay, youtube
POSTED at
10:08 AM
4 Comments:
I want a fan like the lady on the box has !!
Great clip La Cieca! She has a hauntingly beautiful voice in my opinion. Your resourcefulness never ceases to surprise me.
That said, however, there doesn't seem to be any bending of gender going on here. Seriously, she is supposed to be portraying a man? Is it some pre-modern era idea of decency that disallows even a pretense of a woman actually trying to look like a man? I mean, with that Rosa Ponselle bosom and that lipstick (not to mention the hair), there's only the barest suggestion that she's supposed to be a man. If I didn't know the opera already I would never have guessed her character was male. I haven't seen this movie, but is this scene supposed to portray a serious performance of the opera?
I don't mean to sound flippant--I guess I'm just surprised by either the unwillingness or the inability to actually make her look like a man in the movie. But I guess that's a topic for a different blog.
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Zarah, oh Zarah. She sang like a man, got her boobs noticed by Hitler, had a gay friend named Bruno Balz, ran a fish plant, was probably a Russian spy, was considered a Nazi collaborator by the Swedes (of all people), and lived long enough to sing John Lennon songs. If you want the quintessential 20th century life it was hers.
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