Marilyn Horne: A Tribute to the Great Mezzo-Soprano

Don't be morbid - Marilyn Horne isn't dead. That's the point of writing her a brief tribute now, actually. Oftentimes, great artists aren't appreciated enough in their own lifetime. At 72, Marilyn Horne is already well-appreciated in her glory days, so this might not be so applicable to her, but it's been a while since she retired from singing. So I figure I'll post this out there and give her a chance to happen upon it while surfing the net (opera singers are supposedly Internet addicts, anyhow), and know that even those too young to have heard her live in her prime do know about and appreciate all she has accomplished.

There are plenty of great biography of The Diva out there so I won't waste space on it (if you are interested, I do recommend her autobiography The Song Continues which comes with a CD full of rare recordings of her in various roles ... including The Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, The Wozzeck Marie, and Rossini's Cenerentola!).

The thing is, I have been listening to her 1989 recording of Händel's Rinaldo this past weekend and I'm still enchanted by it. What a singer she is. When people talk about 'the Greatest Singer Ever', many think of the late Maria Callas, who could make you laugh and cry all in the same aria with her prodigious dramatic personality even with a voice (or three) that could sound really ugly at times (especially after 1962). Hey, they really don't call her La Divina for no good reasons. The other name that may come up is the great Australian soprano Joan Sutherland, who was so technically fluent that she made Bellini's Norma sound as easy to sing as Old McDonald Had A Farm! I guess that's why she is called La Stupenda.