Those muckraking scamps over at Opera News are at it again, quoting a in their June issue a particularly inflammatory passage from the mad gay diaries of mad gay Cecil Beaton. Dear Cecil, you will recall, designed the Met’s celebrated 1961 production of Turandot that starred Birgit Nilsson. It seems that mere critical and popular success left Beaton still rather tetchy, because he wrote:

I knew that Nilsson was an ugly tasteless Lesbian, but I was to learn of her stupidity. I had designed a wash-like make-up for her to assume an imperious impervious impersonality. At the first dress rehearsal when photographers were present, I was amazed that such an ugly woman could be transformed into an impassive object…

Well, now comes the outrage over at opera-l, though La Cieca wonder a bit at the specific complaint of the outragees. Apparently it’s okay to call La Nilsson “ugly,” “tasteless” or stupid, but “Lesbian,” well, that’s beyond the pale. (Or even beyond the paleness of the “wash-like makeup,” whatever that might be. La Cieca doesn’t think Martha Wash was around at that time, so that’s probably not it.)

Anyway, who knows if Nilsson was gay, and, more to the point, why should we care one way or the other? Were solid evidence to appear that the great Wagnerian led a closeted double life, well, that might be important for the sake of historical accuracy if nothing else. But La Cieca is at best reticent to take Cecil Beaton’s word on who was a lesbian (with or without the capital “L”) and who was not. The man dated Greta Garbo, after all, so his gaydar could probably have used some calibrating.

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