Pablo Larrain's MARIA: Great Callas' Ghost

Pablo Larrain's latest film, Maria,  begins at the very end of the sad life of legendary soprano, Maria Callas.  Through the long shot  of a camera we see Maria's doctor, butler, medics, and the police waiting for her body to be taken away.  All seem as if in prayer, as an actual prayer - or rather an operatic one - Desdemona's Ave Maria from Verdi's Otello - begins. I couldn't help but immediately think of one of Callas' most celebrated roles, Violetta, in Franco Zeffirelli's production for her of La Traviata. Both open with the heroine's death, then shifts between from past to present, as though in flashbacks. In Maria, it often happens without warning.  It felt - to me - a very Callas-like thing for Larrain to do, but I've not heard anyone else mention this, so perhaps I'm looking too deeply.  That's how I think. Sue me.  

Admittedly, being obsessed with this artist since boyhood, and having seen every bio documentary, read the conservatory programs from her Athens' girlhood, own the entire Juilliard masterclass collection, and more, I was both excited - and anxious for the arrival of Larrain's movie. It did not disappoint. 

Many critics are calling it a slog . . . tedious . . . endless, yet, apart from a single scene which I might have shaved a minute from, I found its pacing perfect . . . all of a piece.  Yes, it moves slowly, gently . . . almost dreamlike at times, but never a slot but rather always with determined purpose and, as it progressed, much like that Zeffirelli Traviata, I felt Maria to be a sort of ghost story, the title character's death bookending her tragedy. 

For the literal minded, I can see this movie as being wildly problematic. There is a 1970's foreign film/art house quality which puts us at a distance.  We become observers, rather than participants.  It feels somehow un-American, a dangerous thing to say these days! All of this is helped along by Steven Knight who adds to an already remarkable catalog of scripts.  Knight provides cues and clues that serve like a metaphysical roadmap as to which direction Larrain should take the story, moving it - and us - through a haze of events both real and illusory.  Near the beginning La Callas commands: Come with me said the diva, and there was really no need to ask,''where?"  Some will perceive this as a sort of haughtiness, but I believe it's actually more of an instruction - a key for us to let go of reason. This is reinforced later when Maria explains, point blank, In opera, there IS no reason.  So . .. that's going to be a big problem for a lot of audiences, but that's actually okay because this is not a movie for them (or you, if you're reading this and feel the same).  

Larrain lavishes everything he has to make his film look and feel both beautiful and liberating, yet also almost uncomfortably stifling and distant. He uses lightness and dark like colors, right down to his shifts between black and white, faded/muted hues, and a dreamlike autumnal wash colliding simultaneously between the outside world of reality, and Maria's drug fueled hallucinatory realm. Through all of this, Larrain and his team provide, unwaveringly, stunning details, from knick knacks on shelves, to housemaid Bruna's flipping of an omelet, or Callas' hiding of pills in pockets, all the way down to her beloved poodles dancing on their hind legs impatiently awaiting their supper.

And then there's Paris.  Looking like Maria's personal dreamscape, with its boulevards and Trocadero Square filled with orchestras and choruses, these fantasy sequences culminate in one of the film's most emotionally beautiful moments. During a rainstorm we see and hear, along with Maria, the Humming Chorus from Madama Butterfly as a kimono-clad Maria joins them in a shower of tears and rain. It took my breath away.  

Cinematographer, Ed Lachman's work here is about as beautiful as it gets, and reflective of his achievements. Seamlessly, he blends 35, 16, and 8 mm film stock - both color and black and white - to serve up Larrain's and Knight's vision. They are like the Holy Trinity on this project.  

None of this comes alive, however, without actors and here, Larrain's insistence and vision of Angelina Jolie pays off handsomely. Criticism of Jolie's portrayal had me worried going in, but all that was laid to rest - almost immediately.  It didn't bother me that Jolie is not a Callas clone - in fact, I'm glad they didn't go the fake nose or padded stockings angle to create a Madame Tussauds figure, but rather get beneath the skin of this Maria.  And by this Maria, I don't mean the actual Callas because - well, that's pretty much impossible, isn't it?  That said, while Jolie - especially when viewed head on - may not strongly resemble the real Maria, there are moments when the tilt of the head, or a glimpse reflected in a mirror, feel as though the ghost of Maria is present. Crazy? Absolutely. But, that's also the beauty and the magic of cinema; anything and everything is possible.  

There were a thousand versions of Maria in real life and now, dead for half a century, we have even more; more stories, more versions of them, more . . . everything. That girl from New York, Maria Anna Cecilia Sofia Kalogeropoúlos, turned into Maria Callas, and that Maria Callas has, in death, moved into another realm entirely: the mythological. 

Ms. Jolie's Maria is a magnificent creature. Proud, vain, broken, needy, and haunted.  The actor straddles both worlds - real and imagined - with a purposefully increasing difficulty before ultimately not seeming to care which one she's in. It is an almost soul searing thing watching someone giving up. Jolie reflects this in her gestures, her hands, her sad, beautiful face, and we hear it in her words.  At one point she tells someone, someone very important to her, I don't even know if you're real.  Suddenly, neither do we. From the film's earliest moments I sensed in Jolie a kinship and admiration for the woman she's portraying.  She believes in her, speaks like her, and ultimately moves through each scene like the ghost that this Maria is.

Supporting roles, too, are beautifully done, with Kodi Smit-McPhee  as Mandrax, the mysterious documentarian, Haluk Bilginer's oily, near grotesque Onassis, and Stephen Ashfield's supportive, if mildly pushy Jeffrey Tate. Pride of place however, goes to Pierfrancesco Favino's Ferruccio and Alba Rohrwacher's Bruna, Maria's butler and housemaid. Along with Maria, this trio have formed a comfortable, small misfit family.  The love between them can be sensed - even when Maria's seeming annoyance with them is on display. Those moments are beautiful, and provide the movie's (I almost said opera's) warmest and most amusing scenes.  

Since we are dealing strictly with the final week of Maria's life, much of the story is revealed through flashbacks of Maria's youth in Athens, her triumphs at La Scala, the re-imagined (and historically inaccurate) beginning of her affair with Onassis, and a private meeting with JFK. The musical excerpts are fairly glorious . . . until they progressively become sadder and more painful, on the ears yes, but even more so in the heart. 

I've always obsessed with the artistry of Callas, and hungry for everything I can find about her, on her . . . all of it.  But, I also firmly believe that, like all historical figures, their life stories cannot adequately be told in a so-called biopic. If we truly want to know them - at least as best as we are able, it is through documentaries, biographies, research, those who ay have known them, and yet, even those give only incomplete portraits.  But a film, a biopic is always going to be filtered through the lens of the artist making it - which then reflects only his or her  truth.  It is through taking the time to listen and explore the actual work of the artist we get to know what's most important about them. This is not to say that is all they were, for everything they went through personally and professionally is what delivered them to us in the first place. But we can't ever really know that.  Not really.     

So, with its imagined narrative Larrain's Maria does not even qualify as a biopic in any sense. It is more of a tone-poem for the senses where instead of facts or history, we enter a version - a vision, or a reverie if you will, based on the imagined final days of a legend . . . of this mythological Maria everyone thinks they know, but none of us do. Or can.  

Many lines remain with me, but none felt more true than Maria's admission  to Mandrake, I am afraid audiences expect miracles, and I no longer can perform miracles.  

If you can succumb to Mr. Larrain's style . . . the gift he and his formidable company of artists have created, and wrapped so beautifully for us, you may be moved just as much as I was. Am. 

A Callas Fanboy Continues His Journey

 

As a child I was forever wondering what grown-ups meant whenever they spoke of "fleeting time."  Flash forward more than half a century and I think I'm closer to understanding.  When Maria Callas died on this day, September 16, in 1977. I was 17 years old.  It was a pivotal, transitional year: Although I left home at 13 for boarding school there were still summers home, but at 17 I knew I was leaving for good to study music at a university over 600 miles away from my parents. In many ways this was the most transformative year I was to ever experience.  It seems almost unfathomable forty-six years have passed.  Fleeting time?  63 now, I well understand that phrase.

Over the course of those ensuing years I became one of those "kooks" who collected pretty much Callas’ entire recorded legacy - studio and live - with barely a day having gone by where I've not spent listened to, and thinking about, the singer whose impact on my life was enormous, musically and otherwise. I've done the same with Bach for even longer, so there IS precedent.

Growing older, I became more aware of her flaws, but not one deterred me from believing that, for me, Maria Callas was the consummate singer.  What she was able to do, the characters she could create from the page of the score, and bring them all so brilliantly, so vividly to life, despite those flaws, or even perhaps because of them, made these characters so remarkably real, so utterly human.  Her ability, craft, sourcery, call it what you will, only deepened and made even greater, my appreciation for that truly sui generis artistry.

It was, of course my absolute good luck and privilege that during these years that the internet "happened," and because of it, through it there was the revelation of discoveries of things almost previously unimaginable:  details of student recitals, a more complete look at her training in Athens, those youthful, crazy roles which eventually helped a career that seemed propelled almost as if by a rocket. 

One of the most amazing things was discovering the published programs from her Athens Conservatory days, recitals and concerts from the earliest part of her professional career, and so much more. I ate it all up, spending days upon days digging through all of the archival material I could lay my hands and eyes on. It was dizzying, endlessly fascinating, teasing a smile onto my face, imagining her as Suor Angelica, or singing a wild, dizzying array of arias, songs and scenes none of us - certainly not me -had ever associated with "Maria Callas" with the likes of Rameau, Vaughan Williams ("On Wenlock Edge" with string quartet!), Mozart, Rossini, Brahms, Handel.  I tried to imagine what that young voice may have sounded like in Thaïs' "Dis-moi que je suis belle," or how she closed a concert belting out Landon Ronald's classic, "Love, I have won you!"  Even reading all of this, seeing the documentation, it proved difficult to believe. 

With Callas I can't help but imagine the roles that got away . . . those"almost" roles.  The oune that grabbed me the most was the Greek National Opera's plan to open the 1944 season with the Company's first, Wagner: "Der fliegende Holländer," with the 21 year old Maria (who'd already starred as Tosca there) cast as Senta.  This was to be followed by “Fedora," a role she would sing at La Scala over a dozen years later).  Callas learned these roles, but the company was forced to cancel the entire first half of the season because of the Athens Civil Disturbance.  When it reopened, it was with Maria as Marta in a revival of “Tiefland.”

Before long there came the Walküre Brünnhilde, Isolde, Kundry, Gioconda, Turandot, Aida all segueing towards the bel canto and Verdi (and Toscas) that would define most of her career.  All of this shot into her role as one of the greatest, most talked about, and absolutely controversial stars in the operatic firmament. That controversy "great or not" is still part of what she is remembered for.  It seems fitting.  

After the best years of her career were over, and years of semi-retirement there came projects turned down, offers, and rumors of offers for even more interesting choices no one would would have ever associated Callas with:  a"Salome" with von Karajan; another role debut as "Melisande" for the Paris Opera; Charlotte in "Werther"; Ottavia in "Poppea”; Valentine in "Les Huguenots”. Then, there was Sir Rudolf's "peace offering": a return to the Met in a double bill starring as Elle in Poulenc's "La Voix Humaine," followed by the mime role as the great seductress Potiphar’s Wife with Rudolf Nureyev as Joseph in Strauss’ “Josephslegende.”  Of course, not one of these would come to fruition, most seeming downright improbable and at best, unlikely, yet still that does not diminish one iota the fascinating possibilities in considering what one, or all of these, might have been like had they happened.

Throughout the years since her passing, I've grown up, and learned to love and appreciate countless other singers, but the simple truth remains:  Not one has meant as much to me, has moved me more deeply, or quite broken my heart than La Divina.  Her artistry has been a part of my life from almost the very beginning and, along with a few other major influences like Bernstein or Bach, has shaped the very way I listen to and approach music, how I think about it and the powerful role it has played every day of my life.  For her part in all of this, I can only say, grazie, Maria. Grazie.  

Killing Carmen: Thoughts on a Classic

I’m lucky. It has never been a requirement of mine that I like, or even particularly admire, anyone in order to find them fascinating enough to want to watch or read about them. This is as true of fictional characters as it is of historical, or even currently alive persons.

I think somehow many of us feel “guilty” for watching things like Carmen because we’re preoccupying ourselves with a central character possessing so little, if anything, perceived as redeemable. And yet Carmen remains an eternally interesting character, and, as with many other colorful criminals or outcasts of society, we become fascinated . . . mesmerized even . . . by the way they work in lives vastly different than our own.
As with any stage creature, Carmen opens herself to a wide variety of interpretations, and while many view her as being an archetypal character (in the Jungian sense), I don’t think she is. Not at all, in fact.  I believe in Carmen less as a symbol, and more as genuinely, deeply flawed character who lives out her days according to her own set of principles: the rest of the world be damned. While she may come across as over-the-top, nothing she does, according is ever really too much - or enough so as to make her the comically unbelievable character many choose to see her as. Still, all of the symbolsim we typically associate with the archetype of such a character can actually add to our enjoyment, even when we don't fully grasp it, or disagree with one another as to what it all means.

When first we meet our Carmencita, she’s working at the cigarette factory, and we like her.  We like her mostly because she's colorful, and likes to sing and dance a lot. But, ah, she also likes to fight. She's what some might call a spicy lady.  While she may seem like a fun girl who just gets into the occasional bit of trouble, the fact of the matter is this:  from the outset, Carmen is a criminal.  

The most famous number in the opera, the Habanera, is  simply Carmen taking in the lay of the land, scoping out a possible escape from the trouble she's already planned on getting into. She can't help herself.  As she sings and mesmerizes the crowd, she identifies José as someone she can use; a man to trick - to manipulate into doing whatever it is she needs him to do. She senses through instinct or her powers of observation he will likely do her bidding, possibly most willingly.  Does she sense his weakness? His criminal past? Ever shrewdly attuned to all that is around her, Carmen senses this from the very beginning.  It's not too far a stretch for us to believe she'd initiate a factory fight to achieve this end, and so it becomes a preliminary exercise: use her seduction of José  to gain his assistance for her subsequent escape - an escape from a situation of her own creation. It's all part of her game, and quite possibly a test to see how strongly her hold will be on this deeply troubled man, who himself is using the military as an escape from his own criminal past.

I'm convinced Carmen always looks ahead to her future - and always foresees trouble. Of course she does - it's all she knows.

I've never bought into Carmen being as carefree as she pretends to be, or is always singing about. There are reasons she consults and holds stock in the tarot: she is bound by fate, and ever aware of this. Those who believe in the romance between José and Carmen are buying into something that just isn’t there and thus, not unlike  José, have been seduced by something not entirely attainable.

Like many criminals Carmen appears to be an adrenaline junky, always obsessively moving on to the next bigger thing; bigger risks and bigger highs to feed and satisfy that addiction. The adrenaline rush which comes from criminal activity can certainly be experienced by other means, for example, extreme athletics, risk-taking activities such as cliff diving, or parachuting and, of course, sex.  Adrenaline junkies are forever looking for that next, bigger rush, so ever push themselves further and further, often to the point of their demise, which is of course, the ultimate rush.  I hold this is precisely what happens to Bizet's anti-heroine. You may disagree.

I believe Carmen’s attraction to Escamillo is, however entirely different.  It is instant because here, for lack of a better word, is an Übermensch - a man who, advantaged through superior intelligence and artificial weaponry - plays a game involving a fight-to-the-death of another physically powerful animal – a male from another species - a bull.  Escamillo is a creature who, like Carmen, appears to have no natural fear of death, he challenges it . and (so far) always wins. In this regard, as exciting as it sounds, winning the bullfight would seem to be only the penultimate orgasmic experience, the ultimate rush achieved only through death itself.

Carmen's actions, like self-orchestratng her orgasme final are not unlike Escamillo's. Her bull is Don José,and she has selected this bull as her executioner. 

Like many criminals Carmen appears to be an adrenaline junky, always obsessively moving on to the next bigger thing; bigger risks and bigger highs to feed and satisfy that addiction. The adrenaline rush which comes from criminal activity can certainly be experienced by other means, for example, extreme athletics, risk-taking activities such as cliff diving, or parachuting and, of course, sex.  Adrenaline junkies are forever looking for that next, bigger rush, so ever push themselves further and further, often to the point of their demise, which is of course, the ultimate rush.  I hold this is precisely what happens to Bizet's anti-heroine. You may disagree.

I believe Carmen’s attraction to Escamillo is, however entirely different.  It is instant because here, for lack of a better word, is an Übermensch - a man who, advantaged through superior intelligence and artificial weaponry - plays a game involving a fight-to-the-death of another physically powerful animal – a male from another species - a bull.  Escamillo is a creature who, like Carmen, appears to have no natural fear of death, he challenges it . and (so far) always wins. In this regard, as exciting as it sounds, winning the bullfight would seem to be only the penultimate orgasmic experience, the ultimate rush achieved only through death itself.

 Carmen's actions her self-orchestrateing her orgasme final are not at all unlike Escamillo's. Her bull is Don José,and she has selected this man as her executioner. 

Like many criminals Carmen appears to be an adrenaline junky, always obsessively moving on to the next bigger thing;  bigger risks and bigger highs to feed and satisfy that addiction. The adrenaline rush which comes from criminal activity can certainly be experienced by other means, for example, extreme athletics, risk-taking activities such as cliff diving, or parachuting and, of course, sex.  Adrenaline junkies are forever looking for that next, bigger rush, so ever push themselves further and further, often to the point of their demise, which is of course, the ultimate rush.  I hold this is precisely what happens to Bizet's anti-heroine. You may disagree.

I believe Carmen’s attraction to Escamillo is, however entirely different.  It is instant because here, for lack of a better word, is an Übermensch - a man who, advantaged through superior intelligence and artificial weaponry - plays a game involving a fight-to-the-death of another physically powerful animal – a male from another species - a bull.  Escamillo is a creature who, like Carmen, appears to have no natural fear of death, he challenges it . and (so far) always wins. In this regard, as exciting as it sounds, winning the bullfight would seem to be only the penultimate orgasmic experience, the ultimate rush achieved only through death itself.

 Carmen's actions her self-orchestrateing her orgasme final are not at all unlike Escamillo's. Her bull is Don José,and she has selected this man as her executioner. Taunting and humiliating him, she increases the element of danger and violence to the point where, physically and psychologically, they arrive at a blistering point of no return.  There is nothing left for her to do other than that which she set out to, very likely from the start.  

Until recently, Don José, more often than not, came off as a bit of a loser in a messy romantic entanglement, a "good boy led astray by the evil, witchy woman." The truth, however, is  José is bad news from the get go.  A violent, ill-tempered murderer who killed before the opera begins, and ends the evening by killing again.  "But oh, the Flower Song . . .how could anyone evil sing one of the most beautiful arias in opera?" Right.

José and Carmen should feel like a bad habit for each other as we witness his true violent nature revealing itself little-by-little, until his full, mad fury is unleashed in the opera's final moments.

That Carmen often uses sex to get everything she “wants” is, at minimum, symbolically interesting, not to mention more than just a bit disturbing. One needs only consider how her demise is achieved: (a) the violent plunging of a dagger into her; and (b) outside of the bull fighting arena.

Carmen never asks to be liked, but, like a beautiful, poisonous spider, she lures us into her web, making us think she may have something pretty to offer. She doesn’t. That appearance, much like the music Bizet gives her, is all façade. What she really offers is a bloody, violent, unromantic, and ultimately irredeemable, look into our own baser nature which, while perhaps not pretty, is endlessly fascinating.

 (Photos: Kate Aldrich as Carmen/Jonas Kaufmann and Richard Troxell as  José).

Pasolini & Callas: Medea - Brutal and Beautiful

I first saw the Pasolini/Callas Medea in my teens and . . . well, I was was highly critical of it. I found it disappointing on almost all counts: terrible sound editing, cheap film stock, overly bright, washed-out lighting, bizarre, amateurish acting styles, inadequately edited, etc. I became irritated even more by the extended murder scene of Glauce and Creon going seemingly on forever, and then . . . wait; what's this? It's repeated all over again? Did someone get the wrong reel into the house?

Ten years went by before I watched it again, but this time something happened.  As opposed to watching it on my father's TV screen, it was now on a big screen at the National Gallery of Art in a far better print than what I'd seen.  After that viewing I found myself emotionally drained, my jaw on the proverbial floor with the sudden realization I'd just finished a film that alternately horrified, fascinated and astonished me. I like when that happens. 

Medea is a grim, violent, film, minimally processed which only adds to its gruesome, wild rawness. This is Pasolini's Medea, not Euripedes and it easy viewing is is not. It's not a casual "night at the movies."  Medea is wild in a way that surprises (or can . . . should?) fans of  Hollywood cinema . . . or fans of traditional operatic ways of storytelling. 

A score seemingly steeped in African and Middle Eastern music, with the nasal bleating of women's voices in near pre-historic sounding rhythmic chant adds further to the element of being out there produced by this film.  This Medea is about as far away from popular cinema as one can get. Medea doesn't easily compare to films of any other style or genre; in fact, not even all that much with some of Pasolini's other work. There are reasons.  And yet, if one allows oneself to succumb to its hypnotic, mesmerizing pace - a pace simultaneously frenetic and static - we realize this is as about as close to a hallucinatory experience one can achieve without the use of an illegal substance. Of course, not everyone wants that experience.

As Medea, Callas is amazing. There is, quite simply, no other way to put it. And yet, oddly enough when the film came out, she was roundly criticized for not being able to transfer the magic she so naturally gave on stage onto the big screen. I strongly disagree. The more I watch this film - which has probably amounted to a few times a year for close to thirty years - the more amazed I become by it, and by her performance in it. Yes, I, too, had initially been critical of her almost languid weirdness, but have, over that time, grown to see her commitment to the role as formidable - total.  I find that I'm forever riveted by her almost painfully expressive mask as she inhabits completely this legendary character who is, quite literally, capable of, well, everything (and yes, everything is the correct word in this instance).

Where I was once critical of the lighting which seemed unusually bright, harsh, stripped of deeper colors, I've grown to realize (or think I do) why Pasolini did what he did and what he was hoping to capture.  To finally understand why he chose to film at the times of day he chose to shoot, and all of this resulting in a fascinating, brutal, and surreal luminosity that bathes the entire film with an almost palpable sense of visual texture. It took me years . . . and some think I'm crazy (which is not untrue . . . at least entirely), but it is stunning. It works. 

The landscapes Pasolini chose to film in are every bit as brutal . . .  and as vital as the characters of this grisly tale.  What is also quite remarkable is his near excision of all spoken text (the screenplay being nearly dialogue free) which brings us into a world that is both timeless yet ancient world . . . a universe where all may be understood without the use of verbal communication.

The savagely brutal, bloody rites of the sacrifices for fertility and harvest initially seem barbarous to us, but then become somehow . . . . beautiful . . .  fascinating. Sacred. They also make us cringe with the realization of how, not so long ago, this was us.

A remarkable, savage and beautiful film.

Opera's Hall of Fame?

"Why has no one created an Opera Hall of Fame?"

*******

At first, I thought, "Hey, yeah." But then envisioned the following scenario. I mean, can you even begin to IMAGINE the vetting process for a singer to be put into the "Opera Hall of Fame?" I can!

Chairman: Okay, Callas.

Committee Member 1: Are you KIDDING ME? The woman slaughtered everything she sang, and don’t give me that “she revived the bel canto” crap . . . the woman was a hack and wouldn’t know bel canto if it bit her in the tuckus, which, by the way, is exactly what sounds like is happening everytime she dared to try to sing the stuff. And don’t EVEN get me started about how she sabotaged her sister Jackie’s career. Now THAT was the Callas who should be in the Hall of Fame! Callas? Pass.

Chairman: Corelli?

Committee Member 2: Say whaaaaat? The guy was a musical joke, a stiff, a putz. Oh sure, nice looking and all, but so what? As subtle as a bull in a china shop and no idea what he was singing. Pass.

Chair: Tucker?

Committee Member 3: You’re crossing the line, bub. First of all, the guy looked ridiculous on stage, and those toupees? He couldn't fool a blind man. Add to that how he turned down lucrative contracts because of his “principles” yet sang everything in lowered transpositions of nearly all he sang.

Chair: Richard Tucker did NOT lower his music!

Committee Member 3: Then you have rocks in your ears. Answer: no room for this guy.

Chair: Okay then . . . Rosa Ponselle?

Committee Member No. 2: Okay, you’re kidding right? C'mon, man . . . No bigger fraud has ever been perpetrated upon the citizens of Operaville than this woman, clearly the least talented of the Ponzillo children.

Chair: Sayou?

Committee Member 5: Haaaaaaahahahaha . . . . hahhhaahahahahaha .. . . hahahahaha hah ha ha ha ha ha hah a hhhh . . . excuse me a moment . . . Bid. . . aHAAAA ha ha ha ha ha . . .

Chair: Moving on, how about Carlo Bergonzi?

Committee Member 6: Are you mad? Man, I heard him once and it was the WORST Otello in modern history . . . Make that history history.

* * * * *


And just TRY to imagine the order of the displays and the discussions amongst fans planning to visit the Hall.

“Joan, dear, we wanted to go to the Opera Hall of Fame, but they put that awful Gianni Poggi just before Pippo’s statue, and as I told you, God and the world, I will not step 10 feet within a tribute of that man.

“Eileen, why don’t you go, and then you can actually spit on Poggi’s tribute en route to see di Stefano’s.”

“Why thank you, Joan; that's an absolutely GRAND idea! Say, why don’t you come with and we’ll make a whole day of it.”

“Are you mad? I’d sooner burn the place to the ground and eat the glowing coals then enter any building that would defile itself honoring del Monaco. Phttt.”

“Well, if I'm gonna go and spit on Poggi, you should come and do something vile to defile del Monaco’s space.”

“Hmmmm . . . Eileen, my friend, you just may be onto something.”


p.