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re: Opera singers on Broadway ...

Posted by:	Alcindoro 05:04 pm EDT 05/05/15
In reply to:	re: Opera singers on Broadway ... - AlanScott 02:36 pm EDT 05/05/15

I believe Callas was ever reluctant to sing in English, even though she was American. Bing had early offered her a Met debut in FIDELIO and MAGIC FLUTE, both to be sung in English, and she refused. I think it was also a factor in her not accepting the premiere of Barber's VANESSA -- that, and the secondary role of Erika was the more dramatic, and indeed made a star of Rosalind Elias. Her recording of "Ocean, thou mighty monster" from Weber's OBERON is in weirdly accented, opaque English. Mike Nichols told of meeting her before she became an international star and she had a pronounced Brooklyn accent. Meeting her again a few years later she had acquired a strange hybrid "European" accent and as he put it, "You couldn't tell WHERE she was from!".

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