![]() ![]() Make-up, costume, nightly rehearsals galore for months, the key thing for me was not to trip, fall, and push the divine singer down the stairs and make a mess of her opening night. To get as close to the sound I came alive with when I could barely sing was rapture. ![]() When I became a Super, I didn’t know all it would entail, but I went ahead with it anyway. She looked stunning save for the choice by the make-up department to stripe her nose with pale white to highlight - what exactly? She rounded up her “sister travelers” back stage, and laughed: a black woman in “white face”? Blonde wig? Qui le sait? Price donned a sumptuous high, curled silver-blonde wig and a glorious dress of 18 th century décor. In a long, maroon cloak, a high, French-twist red wig on my head, my faced painted white in the style of 18 th century French Ladies of the Night, I played one of her non-singing but comradely courtesans about to be transported to Louisiana. ![]() ![]() In a flash it seemed like yesterday too when I trailed the great diva down a full-flight of stairs on the San Francisco Opera stage in her role debut as Manon in Puccini’s opera. The Metropolitan Opera production of 1985 starring Leontyne Price in her glory days, in its online stream, seemed like yesterday. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |