5.; My :. . -"«. V

0

I was immediately taken with
the whole thing and switched
from going to Broadway to
going to the opera; I became
something ofa lunatic who went
several times a week. I could
only afford standing room. I
made friends in my mind with
my favorite divas. I tended to
gravitate to Joan Sutherland,
who is also a Grand Scena fan. I
also became addicted to more
dramatic singers with better act-

.;..r:..ue.ii}

   

Jay?‘ . \

Illll llI'8IIIOIlS D390

ing ability. I became a complete
Maria Callas maniac; I stood in
line for 3 days and nights to get
to see her do Tosca — which I
got to see twice. It was her final
two performances at the Met and
almost her final opera anywhere.
She was burned; her voice had
finally taken a powder.

What is it about opera that
appeals to you so much?

If you ever went to something
and were immediately grabbed

by it in a way like you were
never grabbed by anything else
before — there’s not a complete-
ly coherent explanation for that.
I could say that the art fonn has
everything that I love: music that
I’m very fascinated by; the
human voice; that it’s dramatic;
that I found divas and divos, but
particularly the divas, to be fas-
cinating sort-of monsters. I
could say that the art fonn is
compelling because of its com-
bination of music and drama.

But frankly, I don’t know
why it grabbed me. But it did,
and did so immediately. It’s like
going to baseball games but
never wanting to go to football
games. It really got me and I
loved it and still love it, although
I find that exciting performances
are fewer and farther between.
The art form is more generic
now, geared more toward prod-
uct by the media studios.

Because of the need to make
money?

Yes, the classical medium is
in terrible, terrible shape; sales
are at an all time low. So, the
performances are geared for
marketing and producing stars
on the level of the three tenors.
God forbid! It’s not as much to
do with immediacy of the live
performance, even though the art
form at this point tends toward
much more involvement with
stagecraft than it used to, when
singers would walk to the foot-
lights and put out an arm and

sing an aria. Ironically, it is real-
ly the truth that it’s a live perfor-
mance medium. We have all the
stagecraft in people, not the fat
people or the rest of it, and it is
less exciting than when they
walked out to the footlights, put
out an arm and sang an aria.

It’s partly because we are
chronologically farther away
from the original creation of the
works; people are not as attuned
to performing them as they were
when people worked with the
composers. People were writing
operas of real importance only
until the 1920s. After that it’s
been sparse. You had people that
came from a tradition or line of
experience that they don’t any-
more, in the way that Mary
Martin or Ethel Merrnan worked
with Broadway composers and
really knew the requisites of the
singing. Now, Broadway singers
sound like radio singers and
work with body mikes.

Do you feel that the parody
you do is in response to this?

Yes. I do. It’s a re-creation of
something that I loved. While
we really are funny and give the
audience a lot to laugh at and
laugh about, we are also serious,
on a certain level, in restoring to
opera the kind of live perfor-
mance thrill we feel was lost
with the naiveté of the age gone
by.

That’s why we see people
who come to our show regularly
like Jimmy Levine who runs‘ the

Met, or Leontyne Price, or Joan
Sutherland, divas from that era
who think that our singing is
really expressive and exciting.
They also enjoy our spoof of
what they do or used to do.
Some of the reviews I’ve

,seen place emphasis on the

drag aspect rather than your
music. How do you feel about
this?

It’s annoying. But there’s
nothing much you can do about
it.

The most recent reviews
don’t talk about the drag as
much as much as they give away
the jokes and the staging gim-
micks. Which is fine. . .whatever.
For the big fans that are in music
or our regular following in New
York, the singing-is very impor-
tant. The singing is partly seri-
ous and partly vocal spoof; it’s
the references that it makes to
the traditions that they recog-
nize.

What prompted you to start
doing opera in drag?

I had worked a lot in cabaret.
I had characters that I did, and
occasionally one of them would
throw on a schmatta, but no
makeup. I did a parody of a
drugged-out jazz singer for
instance, the kind that wore a big
muu muu and glasses —— the Ella
Fitzgerald look with a Billie
Holiday addiction.

All my characters sang and
did music of various kinds, but I
had seen Charles Ludlam. His

RECEPTION 0 SILENT &
THE VERMONT JA

Saturday, April I7 at 7:30pm

TICKETS $25.00 PER PERSON

available by calling
Vermont CARES at

s
3

VERMONT CARES presents

“A Magic
Evening”

Rnnrssou Horn  
60 Battery SI., Burlington

‘\rvE AUCTIONS 0 MUSIC & DANCING WITH
22 ENSEMBLE

802-863-2437

Q
Q
Q
0
O
0
Q