Sharing the stage another diva in one’s identical fach always puts a girl on her mettle, La Cieca has always said, and no better proof of that just-invented shibboleth is there than this week’s edition of Unnatural Acts of Opera. Grace Bumbry and Shirley Verrett grace the stage of Carnegie Hall on January 31, 1982, in honor of Marian Anderson‘s 80th birthday.

Bumbry/Verrett in Concert, Part 1

Verdi: La battaglia di Legnano Overture
Ponchielli: La gioconda “E un anatema!” (Verrett, Bumbry)
Verdi: Macbeth “Nel dì della vittoria” (Verrett)
Spontini: La vestale “Tu che invoco” (Bumbry)
Donizetti: Anna Bolena “Sul suo capo aggravi un dio” (Bumbry, Verrett)

Opera Orchestra of New York, Eve Queler.