People dying today ain't never died before

"There’s people dying today ain’t never died before." Those were supposedly the words of Gooch, an elderly black man in my hometown, upon hearing of the death of a local prominent citizen. Gooch was considered to be something of an unschooled philosopher (a sort of earlier-day Yogi Berra).

Several opera singers, who never died before (except on the opera stage), have passed away recently. Just last month I heard of the death of Anna Moffo at the age of 73. Ms. Moffo, a Pennsylvania native, sang many soprano roles at the Metropolitan Opera in New York: she was particularly known as Violetta in La Traviata and as Turandot in that opera. I got her autograph, for my collection, during the 1980's when she was a judge at the auditions for young singers put on by the Baltimore Opera Company; my collection consists of three, the others being those of the soprano Licia Albanese (who also was a judge at one of the auditions) and the tenor Carlo Bergonzi, during a reception for him when he sang the role of Nemorino in L’Elisir d’Amore for the Baltimore Opera Company some years ago.

(Had I been prescient back in 1962 I could have also gotten the autograph of James Morris, now an internationally famous bass/baritone. In 1962, the year we moved into our house, our delivery boy for the Baltimore Sun newspaper was (you guessed it) James Morris, age 16 at the time; he grew up a short distance from us and attended the same junior high and high school that our two children did years later.)

Others who have died within the last 2 ½ years are:
Birgit Nilssson (2005)
Renata Tebaldi (2004)
Robert Merrill (2004)
Nicolai Ghiaurov (2004)
Franco Corelli (2003)

Some singers, for me, have "owned" particular roles--by which I mean that, when I think of certain operatic roles, a particular singer comes to mind. Jan Peerce is always Alfredo in Verdi’s La Traviata, Franco Corelli is Cavaradossi in Pucinni’s Tosca, Jon Vickers is Otello in Verdi’s Otello, Robert Merrill is Giorgio Germont in La Traviata, although I also very much like Sherrill Milnes in that role. (Corelli was known as a hotdog, frequently hamming it up with many exaggerations in his singing–such as holding a high note overly long--for which, I believe, he was liked by most people. Once when my son was young, he heard a recording of Corelli singing the aria "E lucevan le stelle" from Tosca that I was playing and asked, "Why is that man crying?")

My interest in opera began in 1949 when I went to New York to work at my first job after college. At that time one could buy a ticket in the "Family Circle," the highest level from the stage at the Metropolitan Opera (at its old location at Broadway and 39th Street) for $2.50 Today, it is hard to believe a price that low; however, it is also hard to imagine that one could have lived in New York on a salary of $240 a month. One could, and did–that was my salary for the first eight months I was there; afterward I changed companies and got $260 a month. So, to attend the Met with a date, which I frequently did, cost the very significant sum of $5.40 (two tickets plus subway fare of $.40, four trips at a dime each), even if we never did anything else, such as have dinner before the performance or a drink afterward.

Another favorite venue was the New York City Opera, which was still new (it began in 1945); it was on West 55th street. Like the Met, it moved to the Lincoln Center in 1966.

One of the most memorable performances that I attended at the Met was La Traviata with Jan Peerce and Licia Albanese. Traviata has always been my favorite opera.

Peerce (born Jacob Pincus Perelmuth) died in 1984. He is my favor tenor as to operas that I have attended, although overall I slightly favor Nicolai Gedda, whom I have never seen perform. Peerce’s voice was "patrician," as one critic has put it. His rendition of "Un di felice" from Traviata turns me on today, as I listen to it on a recording, as it did the first time I heard it. After having only seen Peerce from far away in the Family Circle at the old Met, it was a wonderful experience to see him up very close at a recital he gave in 1970 at a gymnasium on the campus of the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Unlike some opera singers who mix a few opera arias with pop tunes during recitals, Peerce, accompanied by a pianist, sang one aria after another.

I regretted that Jan Peerce, a man whom I admired so much as an opera singer, I saw as a bigot when he virtually disinherited his son Larry upon his marriage to a Gentile. I understand that there was some reconciliation in later years that brought them closer together. (Larry Peerce was a freshman at the University of North Carolina my senior year there; after graduation, he became a documentary film producer.)

In 2005 I attended a performance of Verdi's I Lombardi at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, one of the world's best-known opera houses. It is expansive, finding my seat was quite an experience. The ticket price was the equivalent of $23, amazingly inexpensive for an American. (Currencies in South America are so cheap compared to the U.S. dollar that hotels, restaurants, and everything one purchases all seem like super bargains, especially to an American who has travelled to Europe and had sticker shock when the dollar has been weak against the euro.)

At the Teatro Colón I had the pleasure of chatting with two ladies, one on each side if me, during the intermissions. They told me many interesting things about the performances there--one was why the orchestra was dressed in casual street clothes (I had never seen orchestras other than in formal evening wear). The reason was a long-standing protest by the players against the management--I didn't get exactly what they were protesting, whether salaries, working conditions, or whatever.

I was amazed at the English translations in the printed program for the performance: while the main text was (naturally) in Spanish, there were sidebar English translations, which ranged from mildy bad to laughable. I wondered that such an institution as the Colón couldn't find a native English speaker to edit the translations.