Friday, October 15, 2010

Mae West: In "Orfeo"

MAE WEST spoofed the snobbism of opera in her motion picture "Goin' to Town" [release date: 25 April 1935] — — costumed, hilariously, as the Biblical temptress Delilah. Portraying the star-crossed strongman Samson she serenades was none other than Mae's pesky in-law Vladimir Bykoff [billed as "the Tenor"]. Classical music buffs are either amused by Mae's spunkiness or astonished by an affornt to composer Camille Saint-Saens.
• • But everybody wants to get into a Mae West mode nowadays, including The Met.
• • Daily News Theatre Critic Joe Dziemanowicz just interviewed Jean Braham, a chorus member at the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan.
• • Joe Dziemanowicz writes: Jean Braham, a soprano who lives in Washington Heights, has sung fulltime in the chorus for 12 years. Like other sopranos, she double duties as a peasant and a rich lady in waiting. . . . And there's more to come. Upcoming roles for Braham include a working woman in "La Boheme," which starts on Saturday. In February she'll play a Chinese farmer in "Nixon in China." And in April she's Mae West in the Met's hallucinatory "Orfeo" — — one of her favorite parts, she says. Good-bye, bread and tears. Hello, come up and see me some time.
• • We are grateful to Joe Dziemanowicz for this information. Mae West in the Met's hallucinatory "Orfeo" — — who knew?
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Metropolitan Opera's 'Boris Godunov,' by Mussorgsky, is a showcase for Rene Pape but also the chorus"
• • By Joe Dziemanowicz | DAILY NEWS THEATRE CRITIC
• • Published on: Thursday, 14 October 2010
• • Published on: http://www.nydailynews.com/
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West.

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