Two Shipwrecked Divas
NORDLINGER, JAY
_Books ^Arts_ Two Shipwrecked Divas Kathleen Battle and Marilyn Horne on the Way Down By Jay Nordlinger The story is told of the diva who, shipwrecked, fell into the clutches of cannibals....
...There are two schools of thought on when a singer should retire...
...If any singer seemed likely to go on forever, it was "Jackie," as Horne is known in the faux-chummy opera world...
...Her sound was muted and her intonation was uncertain...
...Her intonation was unerring, her breathing mythic...
...She used to start with a couple of Baroque arias, traverse the serious song repertory, and finish with a display of coloratura calculated to bring people to their feet...
...But now she offers a program with virtually no technical demands, and even that she can barely carry off...
...There was the time when, riding in a limousine in Switzerland, she called her New York managers to insist they get the limo driver to turn the heat up...
...Prove it," the cannibals said, "and we'll let you go...
...But a tearful discussion between him and his meal ticket should not be long delayed...
...Without my fee...
...At 20, she was the dubbed voice of Dorothy Dandridge in the movie version of Carmen Jones, Oscar Hammerstein's reworking of Bizet's Carmen...
...She began with a pair of Handel arias, and everything about them was abysmal...
...When she sang correctly, she sang blandly— which was once unthinkable for Horne...
...others contend that you should continue as long as you can spark memories of your best self and keep a little pride...
...With Horne, "mezzo-soprano" was not "half a soprano," but a vocal base camp from which to make pleasing excursions...
...Her high notes—the money notes for a light coloratura like Battle—were throat-driven, unsupported...
...Without my make-up...
...Her breaths, always high and shallow, were more so...
...Battle was out of her depth on Hugo Wolf's profound "Kennst du das Land," and she couldn't even flirt her way through two of his coquettish songs...
...The first half of her recital consisted of relatively gentle songs, located in mid-range...
...She has always been an uneven performer, but a recent Washington recital found her in serious trouble...
...If I go on too long, blame Marty...
...She is an effective singer of songs in Spanish, and did a few of them stylishly...
...her intonation was wretched...
...She sang "lullabies from around the world" and a group of Leonard Bernstein songs—and sang them ably, but it was strange to witness a fabled technician, who has burned up every important stage in both hemispheres, resort to "Mighty Lak' a Rose...
...her ornamentation was sloppy...
...she did not sing them well...
...Sing something...
...In the spirituals and the encores, she found those silvery high notes, and concluded with a creditable account of Mozart's "Alleluia...
...Abuse-weary employees at one recording company suggested she do a new recording of spirituals— Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Been— and referred to her album with Wyn-ton Marsalis as Music for Trumpet and Bitch...
...Without my agent...
...Some think you should stop when you are no longer your best self...
...There were glimpses, though, of a better Battle...
...Even five years ago, she was sounding more or less like herself, but the shadows have lengthened...
...She could range from deepest contralto to the snow-capped peaks of the register...
...But they never met Kathleen Battle...
...But there is restoration to do, and a woman of her notorious vanity ought to summon the self-respect to get it done...
...1, believing herself entitled to it...
...She could sing music that had lain fallow, not because it was unworthy but because so few singers could execute it...
...So Horne is now confronted with a decision...
...He is not to blame yet...
...Richard Strauss's soaring "Heimliche Aufforderung" called for more voice than Battle could muster, and she spoiled many pieces, including Strauss's "Die Nacht," with absurd interpretive liberties...
...Battle has always been a "pretty-voiced singer"—among the cruelest epithets in music—and that voice is now perilously weak...
...Before they put her in the pot, she cried, "You can't do this to me, I'm an opera singer...
...There was the time in Boston when she called the symphony to complain that the chef at the Ritz-Carlton had put peas in her pasta...
...She cracked repeatedly in the middle range, and she talked the low notes more than she sang them...
...her enunciation was lazy...
...In 1981, Opera News editor Robert Jacobson was able to declare her "probably the greatest singer in the world...
...replied the diva...
...Without my gown...
...Along the way, she picked up a measure of general fame...
...What...
...He's promised to let me know when I'm no longer singing the way he and I know I want to sing...
...Either way, that was part of her appeal: It was as though a man built like a lineman had been graced with the agility of a gymnast...
...Her combination of power and coloratura— along with a keen musical intelligence—did much to restore Rossini to respectability and to bring Handel to the Metropolitan Opera for the first time ever...
...Legions of concertgoers and record-buyers adore her, but the 48-year-old soprano from Portsmouth, Ohio, is loathed in the music world...
...Battle was summarily fired from the Met in 1994 for being a . . . well, "prima donna" is the politest term...
...Her fans will forgive her anything, naturally...
...The Washington outing was unnerving—beginning with the program...
...The second half was akin to a pop concert...
...She had an eerie "chest voice" that thrilled some critics and led others to charge her with singing like a truck driver...
...Mannerisms that used to be merely cloying have become caricature: She slides into notes like a lounge singer and she gesticulates histrionically, as though attempting to make up with her arms for what she is failing to do with her voice...
...Nothing has been in Marilyn Horne's way since she was born to be a mezzo in Bradford, Penn., 63 years ago...
...She was always secure in her technique, reliable in her musical judgments...
...There was the time when she threw the clothes of the soprano Carol Vaness out of the Metropolitan Opera's Dressing Room No...
...Convinced, the cannibals released her...
...Jack Kemp, that merry philosopher of America, proclaimed in last fall's vice-presidential debate that "if you're born in this country to be a mezzo-soprano . . . nothing should be in your way...
...A Washington recital shortly before Christmas showed her in steep decline...
...In her autobiography, she writes of her longtime accompanist: "I have a deal with Marty Katz...
...ment in a genius, but Battle is not earning any indulgence by her singing...
...But today she faces the irksome impositions of age, to which she is engaged in a slow surrender...
...Battle, who should have at least another decade of first-rate singing in front of her, is in tatters...
...It's one thing to excuse temperaAssociate Editor Jay Nordlinger last wrote on the composer John Corigliano (Dec...
...She chatted with Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, hammed it up on TV's The Odd Couple, and functioned as a kind of national Mezzo Laureate, lending cultural weight to PBS fundraisers, Fourth of July celebrations, and presidential inaugurations...
Vol. 2 • February 1997 • No. 20
