tuesdays with mary

Spasimi d’amore

“When Vanni Marcoux as Scarpia in Tosca pursued Mary Garden, a Floria Tosca, around his room on the stage at the Boston Opera House a week ago Monday night, seized her in an amorous frenzy and threw her upon a couch, a part of cultured Boston gasped.”

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Shaken, not stirred

Among the highlights of the first performance of Camille was the fact that its only solo was a Parisian ballad sung by ‘Our Mary’ Garden atop a table in her fashionable salon and its only chorus a few ribald lines by a roomful of guests who had drunk enough champagne to be feeling pretty gay.

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