These diva types and other sentimentals either want to own the memory of someone (their story or no ones) or they have something invested in their own fiction. Eva couldn’t have a lightly blue sense of humor, Gelb couldn’t have gotten some of his ideas elsewhere, there were no gay people before 1990, at least none you’ve heard of, Leyla couldn’t have told a funny though perhaps tasteless story about Callas — of course she wouldn’t speak ill of another soprano, particularly one she was found inferior to or accused of imitating. Sorry — I apologize for the Italian, but I heard worse from Leyla over many years. Her redeeming grace was a sense of humor, which these angels lack.

(I know its not German… i was punctuating my stupidity…)

Now this is a gossip site, please. I have no idea if there is any truth to this whatever. But her delivery was just hysterical, incredible, with her enormous eyes demonstrating everything. Later my grandfather said it might have been true for all he knew, but she was not a good person for repeating it at all, especially in front of a fanciullo as he thought I was (little did he know) — ero una grande regina tanto tempo fa!

There’s a La Scala Forza (als gast in Köln) with Di Stefano which shows how great Gencer was in less-than-florid music. Her Leonora is so strangely inflected, so full of abrupt gear shifts and unexpected pianissimi, that she is gives a perfect picture of a passive-agressive in thrall to Daddy in the first recit, never mind how far she takes it in the opening aria. Even her little departures from pitch – seemingly forgotten in the few cadenzas and unaccompanied vocalises – can be taken as emblems of encroaching dementia. Wow.

If I say that Di Stefano is in the same class, I mean it in both possible ways.

Is Mark Zucker’s speaking voice for real? Or was he the prototype for Mark Maniaci?

I knew Leyle but [redacted]. I met her when I was 13, and though she was rather grand with fans, my grandfather and I went to dinner at a pal of hers in Naples and she was there. She sized me up as an overgrown sunt and was hilariously funny. I remember still what she said (shocked grandpop, I’ll tell you that much) and can hear her inflections and see her eyes. She was always the best to talk to, though I have to say that she wins the prize for unmitigated gall. I didn’t see her as often as some, but I was witness to an insane Norma in Rome and a Forza that was just as crazy in Vicenza. Pity her Odabella and Caterina were not so good on the East Coast, she was having some confidence issues but she also fed off an audience — Italians always gave her something (boos, veggies, insane ovations) to work with. But ‘Gli’mericani’ were so ‘fredezza, come L’inglese quando il nebbia veniva dentro, o si affogato nel palude di Hardy!!” She had actually read Return of the Native in Italian!!

Many thanks for identifying Carla Gavazzi. Absolutely never heard of her, but she talks a lot of sense, as you say. Ancient though she is, one can somehow imagine her in Act II Scene I of Trav being rather splendid based on her little demonstrations of musicianship.

Isn’t mamma Barbieri hilarious? Pissed off her tree on grappa and singing like some demented bass, but marvellous all the same.

As for the Monte Ivnor, I’ll second meremarie: I’d never recomend it for the music, which is rather awful. Only for Gencer’s voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2hd_2m1qXE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNL-k9wkvNE

Great post La Cieca.

http://music.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2279582,00.html