Leontyne

[Recursion]

She's 89 today, and one of the finest artists Mississippi produced (and that's got some serious competition).

[Kind of Blue]

1. Thank you for remembering and posting!

That was exquisite of joy

[Recursion]

2. Here's one a friend just turned me on to

Wow. Wow. Wow.

[Kind of Blue]

3. Listening Now!

Wow, from DeJesus to Price in this group, what a delightful week it's been so far.

Good to see President Carter and Rosalynn, too!

[Recursion]

4. This group is pretty reliably the best place to read on DU... (nt)

[Kind of Blue]

5. Yes, Indeed.

[SusanCalvin]

6. My high school choir sang that!

(Nowhere near as well, of course.....!)

[Princess Turandot]

7. Since this is a political forum, here she is in performance at Jimmy Carter's White House :) ...

on October 8, 1978. She sings "Vissi d'arte" as Puccini's Tosca, one of opera's most celebrated arias.

Happy birthday, Ms. Price!

I was sorry to never see her at the Met here in NYC. She retired from there in 1985, awhile before I developed an opera obsession.

For those not into the opera, in this piece she is reproaching God for the situation she finds herself in, agreeing to submit to an evil police chief's lust, in exchange for the freeing of her lover. He has been arrested by said chief for 'political crimes', for which he is to be executed on the next day. When the aria ends, he embraces her, and she picks up a knife from a nearby table, and buries it in his gut. Oops. You go, girl! (Sadly, this being opera, the lover gets shot at dawn anyway, and she jumps into the Tiber, committing suicide.)