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Donna Summer Could Have Been an Opera Diva
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johnrsa...@live.com
May 17, 2012, 10:25:58 PM5/17/12
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With the passing today of disco diva Donna Summer I will make the bold statement that of all the pop music singers I've heard, Donna is number one in my book for having the raw material to have made a fine opera singer. On her vocal range video on Youtube she sings up to high E, had a gorgeous voice,possessed a unique color, and with maybe the prettiest upper register of any singer in pop. Lord knows she made more money in pop, but it is fun to speculate about what could have been.
alcindoro
May 18, 2012, 9:21:02 AM5/18/12
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On May 17, 10:25 pm, johnrsayshe...@live.com wrote:
> With the passing today of disco diva Donna Summer I will make the bold statement that of all the pop music singers I've heard, Donna is number one in my book for having the raw material to have made a fine opera singer. On her vocal range video on Youtube she sings up to high E, had a gorgeous voice,possessed a unique color, and with maybe the prettiest upper register of any singer in pop. Lord knows she made more money in pop, but it is fun to speculate about what could have been.
If I'm not mistaken, she was singing chorus and small parts with the
> With the passing today of disco diva Donna Summer I will make the bold statement that of all the pop music singers I've heard, Donna is number one in my book for having the raw material to have made a fine opera singer. On her vocal range video on Youtube she sings up to high E, had a gorgeous voice,possessed a unique color, and with maybe the prettiest upper register of any singer in pop. Lord knows she made more money in pop, but it is fun to speculate about what could have been.
Hamburg Staatsoper when Giorgio Moroder discovered her
and produced her first disco sessions.
chromolume
May 25, 2012, 1:59:57 PM5/25/12
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From an interview she gave to the Telegraph:
"She recalls how, in Europe, a world of musical possibilities opened up for her. The conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein came to see Hair when it played in Vienna. 'He absolutely hated the show in New York,' Summer says, 'but he felt we were so genuine and real that he jumped on stage and started dancing with all of us and hugging us.'
The head of the Viennese Folk Opera, who also saw the production, duly hired Summer. During her two years with the company, she appeared in productions of Showboat and Porgy and Bess. But she hated her time in Austria 'like the plague. People were so mean to me.' Not because she was a young black American girl - 'I don't see myself through colour, I see myself as a person who happens to have colour' - but because the other light operatic singers were so snooty, always wanting to know at which institution she had studied. Summer hadn't studied anywhere: she just had a naturally strong, expressive and adaptable voice."
Full interview is at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/3554408/Donna-Summer-too-hot-to-handle.html
johnrsa...@live.com
May 26, 2012, 2:02:22 AM5/26/12
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