Who is Heidi?
UPDATE: La Cieca has just heard from Rosalind Elias‘s management with the news that the veteran mezzo will indeed transfer to Broadway with the Kennedy Center company of Follies. Apparently Playbill was given erroneous information.
According to Playbill, when the Kennedy Center’s revival of the Stephen Sondheim classic Follies is brought to Broadway later this summer for an extended run, Met legend Rosalind Elias—who played “Heidi Schiller” in Washington—will not join the rest of the cast. So, cher public, let’s play casting director for a moment. Who should play this cameo role, a character described as “a 90-year old Broadway legend, whose ringing soprano inspired the operetta kings to produce their lushest waltzes?”
Note that Heidi was created on Broadway in 1971 by Justine Johnston and has since been interpreted by (among others) Adele Leigh, Licia Albanese, Marta Eggerth Kiepura, Yma Sumac, Joan Roberts, Marni Nixon and Lucine Amara.
Vera Galupe-Borszkh seems the obvious choice.
IF only Margaret Truman were still alive!
Well let’s see, we need a voice that is sadly over the hill.
How about:
Jane Eaglen
Eva Marton
Maria Guleghina
or
Renee Fleming!
Mits off la Marton- she’s been in retirement for some time now and her voice was still in amazing shape right up to the time she retired.
Actually, I’m not sure Marton has been retired for some time -- she did Klytamnestra in Geneva last November.
Also, I’m not sure this is a voice in amazing shape (from 2007):
Or this, from 2004:
I like and admire Marton a great deal, but there is no point in leaping to her defence when what you’re saying isn’t true.
I watched these clips of Marton.
Strangely the operetta piece goes rather well after her voice warms up. Good chest voice too. In spite of the vibrato and wildness of the voice, I kind of like it. 2007 huh? Not bad for a woman of her age.
However, the 2004 Turandot in concert I found to be awful. EEEEEEKKKK!
I wonder if she teaches these days, or if she is content to be a retired diva?
Marton is still singing, or perhaps that should be is still “singing”… leave us just to say that she’s still ‘trying her best’.
Or, at least she was as of late last year, as can be heard in this Elektra from Geneva, the link to which I’ll include here for those curious to hear her (FYI- the Chrysothemis is Erika Sunnegardh (!) and the Elektra is Jeanne-Michele Charbonnet)
http://www.rapidshare.com/files/446316193/Elektra_Genf.mp3
Marton teaches at the Lizst conservatory in Budapest, where I think she is head of voice. She certainly has a great deal of hands on involvement, but is rather a scary, unpredictable lady. A friend of mine studied there for a year. The first time Marton heard her, she said she was hopeless and that she should quit singing. The second, a couple of months later, Marton appeared to have no recollection of ever having met the girl before, and praised her to the skies.
For the record, I find this questioning of Guleghina’s intentions really, really odd. Marton’s Turandot here is beyond awful, and yet she gets praised for her commitment. Why is Guleghina characterised as some evil mercenary with nothing but contempt for music?
Ok Ok – so a girl can have an off night once in a blue moon after eating sago and fishcakes. After all those Turandots and Elektras with everything else thrown in between for the last forty years its a wonder she can still sing Little Bo Peep!
If Marton’s Little bo peep is anything like her Ombra mai fu, preserved on YouTube for all to experience, it would be a wonder indeed.
Now Now. I always liked Eva Marton too. (I know, I know, all of you people are groaning at that). Another commenter remarked recently on the “totality of her performance” in a production of Tosca. I would have to agree, even in roles that didn’t suit her so well as time went by (a Trovatore Leonora from the MET I recall as being sorta terrible) she was always committed and you could tell that if the voice wasn’t responding, she was at least making the effort to get it to respond. This is completely different from Maria Guleghina, who seems to just fling her voice at the music and hope for the best.
And remember, almost no one is sacred on Parterre, even one’s own idols!
CK: I seem to recall saying that Marton’s Turandot (as heard in the video above) was awful. As for her commitment, it seemed everyone would understand that I was speaking of past glories.
Eva Marton, in her prime, had (amongst many other great attributes) thrilling high notes. I freely acknowledge she could be inconsistent, but not any more than anyone else. Also, she did not hold back in performance. It is likely that this ate away at the instrument, but not any faster than it does in any other voice.
Maria Guleghina, in her prime and on a GOOD night, was hunting quail in the dark with a shotgun. I freely acknowledge the greatness of the instrument, but she never seemed to get it to work right. Some moments would be great, but many others not. She is one of those singers who I describe as having a “strategy” rather than an actual vocal technique. She has figured out ways to get through the things that she sings without ever really figuring out how to sing in the first place.
I think it would have been very interesting for Guleghina to have studied with someone like, say, Dimitrova (who did figure out what she was doing) or some other similar voice. I wonder how that would have turned out…or even Millo (since they sing so much of the same rep). Millo might have tamed the beast and put some real bel canto into her. But Millo doesn’t seem to teach. Oh well.
Is David Daniels in the running?
Oh, pardon me please. Being unfamiliar with the piece, I was not aware that it was supposed to be a soubrette type.
How about Barbara Bonney?
Come to think of it, now that NYCO seems destined for immortality in history books alone, Lauren Flanigan could probably use a job…
Well, Vera still sings pretty well but is so terribly busy. What is Patrice Munsel doing?
Oooooh….Munsel. There’s a blast from the past!
saw Munsel at the gerdalessner foundation concert, she usually comes to it. looks frail but delightful. had a charming conversation.
It would be a special thrill if Luciano came back to do the roll
Heidi Grant Murphy.
I just heard Helen Donath last week in Essen sing a *wonderful* Zerlina ( played as a pensioner reliving her marriage 50 years later)– as good a “Vedrai carino” as anyone in the world could sing. She could sing the hell out of *Young* Heidi.
So Costa or Grist –or is Barbara Daniels too young?
In January 2012 it will be fifty years ago Helen Donath started out at the International Opera Studio in Cologne. Well done!
ABSOLUTELY LOVELY IN EVERY WAY!
I vote for Chita Rivera as Solange
Elaine Stritch, chita rivera or Barbara Cook for Hattie
Friend of mine saw Chita last night and said the performance was so good it could have been a masterclass..