Episode 346. Olive Middleton and La Puma (Alternate Universe Bel Canto)
SOCIAL SHARE
SUBSCRIPTION PLATFORM
Hello, Campers! Once again it is April Fool’s Day, which means that here at Countermelody, we’re doing another in my “Alternate Universe Bel Canto” series. This year the featured diva is Olive Middleton, still remembered by a certain kind of opera lover who adores fearless singers who throw caution, technique, and discretion to the winds. In the case of Middleton, she became, late in life, the lead soprano of the La Puma Opera Company (officially titled the La Puma Opera Workshop), where she fearlessly undertook the most challenging soprano roles of the operatic repertoire. Today, as last year, I am joined by my friend the redoubtable Thomas Bagwell, whose love of bad taste and cringe-worthy artistic expression surpasses even mine. We have a rollicking conversation about Middleton, interspersed with choice live selections from La Puma in the 1960s. Along the way, we discuss the “so bad it’s good” phenomenon and its manifestations in film, on stage, and on the printed page, including an abominably bad poem about Olive that Thomas specifically for this episode. In the end, we arrive at many conclusions, first and foremost that singers like Middleton were motivated, in the words of John Ardoin, “a love for singing, a love for music, a love for her audience. She disperses this primary element in unstinting fashion, sharing with her public a devotion to and pursuit of art that is surely without parallel.” If you have not yet experienced the force of nature (and mind over matter) that is Olive Middleton, you are in for a listening experience like none you have ever had!
RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE
All selections feature Olive Middleton, with (unless otherwise noted), members of the La Puma Opera Company (more properly known as the La Puma Opera Workshop)
Vincenzo Bellini: Troppo il felon presume (Norma). Mario Leone, conductor; Bill Yearwood, piano [live 22.VII.65]
Francesco Cilea: Io son l’umile ancella (Adriana Lecouvreur)
Amilcare Ponchielli: Suicidio! (La Gioconda). Olive Middleton, La Puma Opera Company
Giuseppe Verdi: Ecco l’orrido campo… Ma dall’arido stelo divulsa (Un ballo in maschera). Olive Middleton, unknown pianist [possibly Alfred Middleton] [demo, mid-1940s or early 1950s]
Giuseppe Verdi: Miserere (Il Trovatore)
Pietro Mascagni: Ineggiamo il Signor non è morto (Cavalleria rusticana)
Richard Wagner: O hehrstes Wunder! (Die Walküre) [live 1965]
Giacomo Puccini: Vissi d’arte (Tosca) [live 1968]
Vincenzo Bellini: In mia man alfin tu sei… Già mi pasco ne’ tuoi sguardi (Norma). Danilo di Pena, Pollione; Mario Leone, conductor; Bill Yearwood, piano [live 22.VII.65]
Francesco Cilea: Giusto ciel! (Adriana Lecouvreur)
Umberto Giordano: Vicino a te (Andrea Chénier)