The Great Lady Has an Interview
Legendary diva Martina Arroyo chats with Our Own JJ about learning, teaching and The Odd Couple. [New York Post]
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Think of all of today’s PRETENDERS who could learn from this short, abbreviated clip!!
Martina is THE TOPS in pure GRACIOUSNESS…(BESIDES being a GREAT ARTIST…!)
I have seen her a number of times thru the past years at events surrounding her Foundation, and she has always remembered (or at least given a good show) me and my friend who has a Guide dog…and been very welcoming, indeed…!
BRAVA,Ms. Arroyo…!!
love you, dear Martina!!
What a doll. And an extraordinary voice, not just in opera – she’s utterly spine-tingling in the first movement of Kubelik’s recording of Mahler’s Eighth.
A true camp moment in a great career: fairly early on, she recorded Stockhausen’s “Momente,” which includes German text from the Song of Solomon. If you listen carefully you’ll hear Martina bubbling cheerfully in the background: “Ich bin schwarz, denn die Sonne hat mich so verbrannt!” Not only does she get the humor, she’s clearly running with it.
love her love her love her. Such a creamy, delicious and effortless sound!
By the time I to her Donna Anna at the MET she was rock solid in the part and just fine.
Most memorable moment, I think was her legendary appearance on a MET intermission round Table with Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne:
“. . . when I was singing Madame Butterball . . .”
“Where Ms Blegen would trip lightly down the stairs, with me it’s more like a LUNGE!”
In answer to Sutherland saying that one is BORN with a trill: “But Joan, don’t you think you were overdoing it a bit when you came in today and said
o o o o
‘Hell- -o- -o- -o- -o!’”
There is an urban legend which reflects her self-deprecating humor and quick wit…apparently (so the story goes) it was around the time when Leontyne made her MET debut, and there were few African-American singers working at the time. When Ms. Arroyo arrived at the house for a performance, the doorman said, “Good evening Miss. Price” and Martina quipped, “No, honey, I’m the other one”. I’ve always wondered if that was a true story.
I thought the punchline, after “Good evening Miss Price,” was Arroyo replying, in a very high-pitched voice, “No, I’m Reri Grist!”
A version of this story I heard Arroyo herself tell was that a woman in the audience at a Met performance she attended approached her effusively, mistaking her for Leontyne Price. Arroyo replied (and I do remember her lowering her voice when delivering this line ), “I’m sorry, madame, but my name is Anderson.”
Oh, dear — the formatting didn’t hold, but you get the idea, I hope.
The best singing ever
There was a story around IU that on her birthday her students were having some cake and the phone rings; it was the Pav and his birthday greeting was Tu sie vecchia, vecchia, vecchia
Her response? E tu sei piu vecchio e piu grasso
That woman is just fabulous. I miss talking to her.
I remember her singing Donna Anna with Siepi (and Gedda), don’t remember any awkwardness, just how beautiful her voice was; and I remember a spectacularly beautiful performance of Trovatore around the same time; what I don’t remember (I was just a kid) was how people described or classified her type of voice and repertory and whether that was an obvious thing, to move back and forth between Leonora and Donna Anna. . . I did not remember the Odd Couple episode; thank you for posting that!
She sang Elvira too, didn’t she? On record at least. Nilsson, Arroyo, Grist; that recording ought to have been better.