Happy Independence Day, Peninsular Malaysia (because Malaysia didn't achieve total independence until Malaysia Day and I'm bitter like that, heh)!
This is going to be the first in a series of few posts which will be unashamedly about diva-worship. Other opera fans who are claiming to be above such things can go fuck themselves.
I'd like to start this series with Anna Moffo. Girl was gorgeous. Girl had voice - in spades, literally: she sang Elisabetta on stage. Girl had talent aplenty. So what the fuck happened? According to Herself, it was her first husband who drove her faculties to distraction and extreme fatigue, ultimately destroying one of the most beautiful (soprano) voices to come out of the land of Buffalo wings and french fries.
I first heard Anna Moffo from a YouTube video of her singing Marguerite's Jewel aria in what looked like a fluff-piece cabaret concert. Girl looked fierce, but had no trill to speak off (that impression was wonderfully changed later, of course). I noted though her voice sounded like sex personified. It had throb, it had sensuality, it sounded atrociously *female*. This is the kind of voice you can imagine hearing from her side of the bed after an all-night orgy.
Then I heard her singing a song from Showboat, Bill, as one of the songs from her Italian RAI television show. I don't know then, but I fell in love with her the moment I heard "I don't know" from her lips. I couldn't help it. There's something about the way she phrased this standard that made you believe even though she's probably fucking around this Bill fellow's back, she really did love him, at least when it all first started.
I sound like a crazy fan. I am. I now am the proud owner of several Anna Moffo recordings, including the greatest La rondine ever recorded, a daring take on Luisa Miller, a Madama Butterfly which made a powerful case for the lighter voice (Gheorghiu, I'm looking at you), a perfectly balanced Lucia di Lammermoor with Gorgeous Charlie (passport name: Carlo Bergonzi), even the shitty ones like the duse of crap, the Thaïs recording with the young José Carreras, and the tear jerker of the lot, L'Amore dei tre re.
Her recording which I love most was of course the Rondine. She made Magda sympathetic, which is of course really hard to do. I love the fact that she did not made the dream aria the centerpiece, but gave that place of honor to Ore dolci e divine. Her duets with Daniele Barioni were living gems. The wonderful Act 2 quartet did not turn saccharine, but kept the momentum going: happiness is effervescent, after all.
The second was her L'Amore dei tre re with Domingo and daddy a.k.a. Cesare Siepi. This was unfortunately for a sadder reason: to wonder how the fuck everything come to this. At least the Thaïs was a camp-fest. I couldn't help crying the first time I listened to Moffo's first phrase: "Ritorniamo", intoned in a hoarse middle voice. Return to what? It was a ruin of a voice, but what a magnificent ruin.
Maybe that was the problem. Moffo wasn't exactly a musical genius like Callas was, in the way she never made a phrase her own. Okay, I am probably too harsh; I've heard at least two phrases which had never been bettered by anyone else: "Tu sei con Dio ed io con mio dolor" from Madama Butterfly, and "Per non vederlo più!" from the live 1961 Met Turandot, in which everyone in the cast, even the chorus, was perfect.
But that was not the problem. The problem with Moffo was, once you get through the sheer gorgeousness of her timbre - and that was a great deal of fabulous you have to get over - she was at most an extremely competent singer who happened to have beautiful physical features, and fact is people are shallow like that. I do heard that she was a wonderful affecting actress on stage. I've seen her films: the Sonnambula, Madama Butterfly (which made her one of Italy's most beautiful women) and the Traviata. She indeed looked wonderful and had the operatic naturalism acting style down pat.
But all of this did not deny the amount of artistry she poured for the world. Maybe it's the bitter hag in me, wondering what-if's and what-could-have-been's. In an age where not only beautiful voices were plenty but there were also interesting "artistic" voices (Magda Olivero, anyone?), Moffo certainly held her own. And I'll certainly never forget her heart-aching rendition of Bill.
This is going to be the first in a series of few posts which will be unashamedly about diva-worship. Other opera fans who are claiming to be above such things can go fuck themselves.
 |
| The young Anna Moffo circa 1956-59, before the rhinoplasty and (glorious) weaves |
I'd like to start this series with Anna Moffo. Girl was gorgeous. Girl had voice - in spades, literally: she sang Elisabetta on stage. Girl had talent aplenty. So what the fuck happened? According to Herself, it was her first husband who drove her faculties to distraction and extreme fatigue, ultimately destroying one of the most beautiful (soprano) voices to come out of the land of Buffalo wings and french fries.
I first heard Anna Moffo from a YouTube video of her singing Marguerite's Jewel aria in what looked like a fluff-piece cabaret concert. Girl looked fierce, but had no trill to speak off (that impression was wonderfully changed later, of course). I noted though her voice sounded like sex personified. It had throb, it had sensuality, it sounded atrociously *female*. This is the kind of voice you can imagine hearing from her side of the bed after an all-night orgy.
Then I heard her singing a song from Showboat, Bill, as one of the songs from her Italian RAI television show. I don't know then, but I fell in love with her the moment I heard "I don't know" from her lips. I couldn't help it. There's something about the way she phrased this standard that made you believe even though she's probably fucking around this Bill fellow's back, she really did love him, at least when it all first started.
I sound like a crazy fan. I am. I now am the proud owner of several Anna Moffo recordings, including the greatest La rondine ever recorded, a daring take on Luisa Miller, a Madama Butterfly which made a powerful case for the lighter voice (Gheorghiu, I'm looking at you), a perfectly balanced Lucia di Lammermoor with Gorgeous Charlie (passport name: Carlo Bergonzi), even the shitty ones like the duse of crap, the Thaïs recording with the young José Carreras, and the tear jerker of the lot, L'Amore dei tre re.
Her recording which I love most was of course the Rondine. She made Magda sympathetic, which is of course really hard to do. I love the fact that she did not made the dream aria the centerpiece, but gave that place of honor to Ore dolci e divine. Her duets with Daniele Barioni were living gems. The wonderful Act 2 quartet did not turn saccharine, but kept the momentum going: happiness is effervescent, after all.
The second was her L'Amore dei tre re with Domingo and daddy a.k.a. Cesare Siepi. This was unfortunately for a sadder reason: to wonder how the fuck everything come to this. At least the Thaïs was a camp-fest. I couldn't help crying the first time I listened to Moffo's first phrase: "Ritorniamo", intoned in a hoarse middle voice. Return to what? It was a ruin of a voice, but what a magnificent ruin.
Maybe that was the problem. Moffo wasn't exactly a musical genius like Callas was, in the way she never made a phrase her own. Okay, I am probably too harsh; I've heard at least two phrases which had never been bettered by anyone else: "Tu sei con Dio ed io con mio dolor" from Madama Butterfly, and "Per non vederlo più!" from the live 1961 Met Turandot, in which everyone in the cast, even the chorus, was perfect.
But that was not the problem. The problem with Moffo was, once you get through the sheer gorgeousness of her timbre - and that was a great deal of fabulous you have to get over - she was at most an extremely competent singer who happened to have beautiful physical features, and fact is people are shallow like that. I do heard that she was a wonderful affecting actress on stage. I've seen her films: the Sonnambula, Madama Butterfly (which made her one of Italy's most beautiful women) and the Traviata. She indeed looked wonderful and had the operatic naturalism acting style down pat.
But all of this did not deny the amount of artistry she poured for the world. Maybe it's the bitter hag in me, wondering what-if's and what-could-have-been's. In an age where not only beautiful voices were plenty but there were also interesting "artistic" voices (Magda Olivero, anyone?), Moffo certainly held her own. And I'll certainly never forget her heart-aching rendition of Bill.
