happy birthday jeanette macdonald!
The titian-tressed triller was born 106 years ago today in Philadelphia; appropriately, on Arch Street. Miss MacDonald
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Hndymn hit the nail on the head.
Jeanette MacDonald was a beautiful movie star that sang. It’s like criticizing Ginger Rogers for not dancing like Isadora Duncan.
She was essentially an operetta star, not an operatic diva. It should be noted, however, that she did get good reviews when she performed on the operatic stage in “Faust” and “Romeo et Juliette” in the mid to late 1940s. And even Lotte Lehmann was impressed by Jeanette’s abilities and work ethic and stated that she would have become quite the lieder singer if she had had the time.
It’s equally important to remember that Jeanette’s films (as well as Deanna Durbin’s and Kathryn Grayson’s) brought opera and vocal glamour to places during the Depression 1930s that had probably never been exposed to anything resembling the art form. The door to opera was likely opened by her films to audiences who might only been exposed to the Met broadcasts on the radio.
The accounts of many classical singers attest to the impact that Jeanette’s films had on them, among them Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, and Beverly Sills to name just a few.