vows
Denyce Graves — whatever happened to her? Well, for one thing, she has apparently married well. Yesterday the mezzo-soprano wed Robert Montgomery — not the 1940s film star, but rather the chief of transplant surgery at Johns Hopkins. (He’s the surgeon whose team pioneered the transplant technique of removing a donor’s kidney through her vagina.) [Washington Post]
Well, congrats to Denyce. But the Washington Post calls her “the top diva of her generation”????? Wow, that’s creative
Well, it all depends on how you define “top,” “diva,” and generation.”
And “of.”
What happened to that scruffy looking hillbilly type she was with a while back?
Well I wish her every happiness.
On the career front I know she will be singing with Opera NJ at the NJPAC, with, I think but not sure, the NJ Symphony.
The rumor is that this is partly why Ruth Ann Swenson cancelled her Fledermauses last year, because heres were out in the boonies with a reduced orchestra and then she found they were doing this larger scale production.
i have NO way to verify this rumor, it is just hearsay and not substantiated.
oy. somewhat OT, but does the Post not have editors?
**
“I’m usually the first one to pull out my laptop” on long trips, Graves told us.
**
“We’ve begun an excavation of our souls that has unfolded new selves for us.”
bleah
@pavel
I just threw up in my mouth. That sounds like something Tippett would set to music.
Well, perhaps Graves’ doctor husband can perform another, ground breaking operation and fix her voice through her “you know what”! YECH!
The Washington Post style section always reports on whatever Graves is up to, she’s a local and went to the performing arts high school here. While the music critics sometimes told it like it was about her voice, the rest of the paper seems to have ignored her vocal decline — or when they hint at it, it’s in terms of her (evidently former) wreck of a life.
So I guess her guitar playing hubby is in the same place where her Amneris is…
Graves may well be the the top diva of her generation to have emerged from her DC neighborhood, but the Washington provinciality at work here is staggering.
She is indeed singing CARMEN for Opera New jersey alongside Richard Leech next year. Maybe they can complete the cast with Gino Quilico and Eva Lind and go on a nostalgia tour.
Talk about Vagina Monologues… thank heavens I re-read the blurb at the top. For a moment I thought that Dr. Montgomery had removed Denyce’s kidney through HER vagina – OUCH!
Here’s wishing the newly weds health and happiness in their new life together.
Denyce Graves’ first husband was also wealthy – a guitar importer and lutenist named David Perry who she married in 1990. I believe he came from money and was older than she was by a decade or more. They divorced around 2004-2005 when she got pregnant by her male personal assistant. I think he was French. Her first husband I think had looked the other way at previous affairs and may have accepted the child as his own.
Interestingly, Graves’ career took off when she and Perry met in 1989 and married in 1990 and pretty much had tanked by 2004 when she got pregnant. Pregnancy also didn’t seem to improve her voice.
This article discusses her career problems which came to a head around 2000 including a vocal crisis and the removal of a polyp from her cords:
http://www.andante.com/article/article.cfm?id=26112
Here’s a pic of the couple (yikes)
http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/2009/08june09/08transplant_fundraiser.html
she’s singing with the NYPhil in july. she’s announced for excerpts of carmen and dalilah.
Ai wow, chaka. Those people actually make Denyce look good.
yippee! Carmen and Dalilah…meh, who cares.
@14 re: the picture
“We’ve begun an excavation of our souls that has unfolded new selves for us.”
Apparently he’s a brilliant man of science disguised as the Marquis de Fou, and she’s a beautiful woman still masquerading as an opera singer. Obviously they’re made for each other. Start digging!
She was married to David Perry who is the brother? of Janet Perry (a soprano herself). I for one fell in love with Grave’s voice whenI heard it some 15 yrs ago (She was impressive in Margaret Garner a few seasons back)and looking forward to hearing her as Carmen here in NC next spring.
Ah, GRENDEL. That takes me back. What a bizarre, bizarre piece that was, but I liked it. Last time I heard Graves was in The Rake’s Progress about two years ago. It wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t terrible, either.
Oh my goodness, those whiskers! They make me instinctively cross my legs. Yikes.
Man has the highest style facial hair of 1885. Maybe it tickles her–OK I’m not going to go there.
Early on Graves was a really strong performer. It wasn’t the greatest voice in the world for technical polish, but it worked, it was pretty and she was (probably still is) a real stage animal as well as a beautiful woman. In the 90s I saw her Carmen once and Dalila twice (S&D is a “guilty pleasure” for me) and she made an impact. I’m always sorry to see a performer like Graves suffer a vocal crisis–she brought both glamor and some excitement to her work.