Happy Birthday Leopold Stokowski
The American conductor (about whom Wikipedia mildly says “There is some mystery surrounding his early life”) was born in London on April 18, 1882… or perhaps 1887. Or was it Pomerania in 1889?
Here’s the mysterious maestro in one of his rare appearances on the operatic podium, Turandot at the Met, on March 4, 1961.
No wonder she prefers opera to jazz – BAB clearly doesn’t like scat.
Got news for ya LittleMasterMiles- heaps of us don’t lik scat.
JackJack—
Metropolitan Opera House
March 4, 1961 Matinee Broadcast
TURANDOT {29}
Turandot…………….Birgit Nilsson
Calàf……………….Franco Corelli
Liù…………………Anna Moffo
Timur……………….Bonaldo Giaiotti
Ping………………..Frank Guarrera
Pang………………..Robert Nagy
Pong………………..Charles Anthony
Emperor Altoum……….Alessio De Paolis
Mandarin…………….Calvin Marsh
Prince of Persia……..Edilio Ferraro
Servant……………..Thomas Russell
Servant……………..Craig Crosson
Servant……………..Robert Bishop
Executioner………….Howard Sayette
Executioner………….Wally Adams
Executioner………….William Burdick
Conductor……………Leopold Stokowski
#19  –It would be an interesting clinical study to discover
why some folk are so taken up with suppositories and laxatives – many
thoughts come to mind since it
involves a certain part of the body,
in this case can it be that some people have their brains located in
that area and must constantly flush
to get a thought out ?
Re Garris, I’ve read over the years that he was cruising in some rough neighborhood and terribly, got a lot more than he bargained for. I don’t think an official description along this line was ever released, so take this as possible gossip, possible truth.
What reinforces this explanation is that the story was pretty much hushed up, the Met not wanting the association of sex seeking sissies with their Spring Tour.
Marc Blitzstein came to a sad end looking for some trade about a dozen years later. That situation is pretty much accepted as fact.
Re Blitzstein, there’s a fine biography, Mark the Music, by Eric A. Gordon, which does cover his horrific death.
Thanks, all. Oddly enough there are still news clippings online; they are filled with the half-speak of those ‘friend of Dorothy’ days. But I came across one loose end that intrigues me. An Atlanta police lieutenant followed The Met to Memphis and Los Angeles. I sort of wonder if he didn’t find a member of the corps de ballet whom he was very interested in questioning further.
Betsy27#:, Such stories of corruption in that era, seem to have a surprising similar ring about so many of them. Like one local item I was familiar of, as a kid. In a late 50′s, a sensational ‘considered very trashy’ local weekly newspaper that dared to report everything including ‘unsavory things’ – a local doctor was supposed to have surprised a burglar in his swank apartment. Strangely remarkable was the fact that police were called, and ‘had taken both the burglar and doctor’ to Police headquarters for questioning and to ascertain the truth about cross accusations being made.Next thing Doctor was reported to have done a Tosca…’allegedly jumped to his death out of high rise P/Headquarters window’. Case was quickly hushed up. It is understood it was not robbery (but a lovers’ tiff) was the real subject of the Police’s prejudicial concern. The anomaly: how the doctor being supposedly questioned ‘as a robbery victim’ somehow came to finish up out the high rise windows on the footpath below, was quickly, conveniently forgotten about..
Yo Betsy. Gurl, I wanted to tell you that I made it to Gotterdammerung! James Conlon is a genius. Why wasn’t I told? Ditched the depends. Yes, I do live in Los Angeles.
Justine, my divine one, good to hear from you. But you’re not getting off that easy. I want details; the other posters on this site want details. You see, darling, you are a fresh, unspoiled mind carrying a minumum of baggage from the past. So you must say the first thing that comes into your mind about each of the major singers and particularly about the production. We have heard about it, but only you have experienced it. Share. Share. Plus I am an old man and I want a little jog down Memory Lane. So “I live in LA” is not enough. “Near USC,” “South Central,” “Holmby Hills,” “Silver Lake,” just a general area will paint a picture for me.