I am an opera lover but I know next to nothing about it. I just like listening to it. And I miss my friend Collie Parker who passed away not too long ago.
Sometimes I would post an opera song on social media and nearly every time I did I would get a message from Collie telling me what it was all about and where she and her husband had seen it. She never put her opera comments on Facebook, they were always in a private message to me “because this is far too pedantic for Facebook.” She is also the only person I’ve ever known to use the word “pedantic.”
She was so funny and full of such detailed information about opera that I have grown to love it even more. She taught me a lot and told me about other singers I might enjoy that I probably would never have heard, if not for her.
One of the singers she told me about is Dame Joan Sutherland about whom Luciano Pavarotti himself called the greatest soprano of all time, which is a good enough recommendation for me, and I agree with him. She’s the real deal.
The thing that made her internationally famous was an opera she did in 1959 called Lucia. Franco Zefferelli directed it. The story goes that Lucia was in love with someone but her brother made her marry another man because they were poor and needed the money.
There’s a scene in the opera where Lucia goes crazy and she kills her husband off stage. When she comes back she sings a song, and Zefferelli wanted her covered in blood to sing the song because if you stabbed someone a million times you would naturally be bloody. That had never been done in a performance before. It shocked the audience and Sutherland’s voice shocked them even more. Oh, and she drops dead at the end of the song. It’s all very dramatic.
Another singer I like has a strange name, Montserrat Caballe. She was kind of a rock star in opera and did a bunch of concerts with Freddy Mercury, lead singer of Queen. They are a lot of fun to listen to. You wouldn’t think the two styles would go together, but you’d be wrong for thinking so. They are amazing duets.
Caballe was the stereotypical opera singer. She was a very large woman with an even larger voice. To great fanfare she and Freddy Mercury sang a duet called “Barcelona” (and made an album by the same name) and they sang it during the opening ceremony of the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, which is Caballe’s hometown.
Aretha Franklin is possibly the best singer ever in my opinion, but you don’t normally think of her as singing opera. But, once again, you’d be wrong.
At the 1998 Grammy Awards, Luciano Pavarotti was supposed to sing Nessun Dorma. Unfortunately, he fell ill at the award show before he was supposed to go onstage. Guess who stepped in for him and sang the same piece with only a moment’s notice? Aretha. The Queen of Soul. And it was amazing.
The audience, including one billion people all over the world who were expecting to hear Pavarotti, was shocked. There was thunderous applause and a standing ovation in the auditorium filled with her musical peers.
One of my favorite parts was seeing the camera panning the audience afterward. Celine Dion was on the front row with eyes and mouth wide open, not able to believe what she had just heard, shaking her head in disbelief.
You must Google that if you haven’t seen it. Type in “Aretha Nessun Dorma” and it’ll pop right up. Even if you don’t know the name “Nessun Dorma” you have probably heard it before in movies. But not like Aretha sings it. It might just give you an appreciation for opera that you didn’t know you had. kyle@rockdalereporter.com
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