ONE of Elise Curran's idols was in sparkling verbal form (she's given up singing) at her illustrated talk, which largely strayed from the premise of its title.
Not that it mattered one iota.
The title was Twenty love-sick maidens we… And we die of love for thee: Valerie Masterson's Operatic Heroines.
Among the items the singer played, only Violetta from Traviata and Gilda (Rigoletto) strictly fit
the bill.
Three Gounod heroines, Juliette (Romeo and Juliet), Mireille and, more tenuously, Marguerite (Faust), would have but she didn't offer any of their music.
Failing one or two not coming to mind, they actually are the only five maidens dying for love that the soprano sang in her distinguished international operatic career.
All this is pure observation, by no means criticism.
Over an entertaining couple of hours Valerie talked about some of the operatic heroines she has sung, although it was a pity about the edge of distortion on the recordings played, live or studio-bound.
Her opening gambit, "girl comes – falls for guy – dies," was a generalisation in the circumstances and she went on to mention ways that she had 'died' on stage. TB, burnt to a crisp, stabbed, poisoned and stabbed, sunstroke, decapitated, heart attack were among them.
She got a mention in of the G&S roles she played with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company before her operatic career took off which will have pleased many in the audience.
More so when she played Josephine's Sorry Her Lot (Pinafore) first, before moving into the realms of Mozart's Il Seraglio, Verdi's Rigoletto and Traviata, Handel's Semele, Massenet's Manon, Bizet's Pearl Fishers, all with at least one recorded example and often wry observation on the roles.
Many were accompanied by anecdotes of productions she had sung in, related with a laid-back almost matter-of-factness that made them all the more funny at times, particularly the act three shenanaghins on stage in a Geneva Rigoletto with Piero Cappuccilli and Gillian Knight.
She had a couple of stories of playing Mimi in Puccini's La Boheme, although no recorded examples of her in the role but, completely off the radar, her duet with Thomas Allen from Brigadoon was inserted for light relief.
All the recordings played displayed the Masterson voice in fine fettle and the bravura I'll Take No Less from Handel's Semele, with its fiendish coloratura runs, was especially ear-catching.
(A thought: Why has Valerie Masterson, awarded a CBE in 1988, never received a DBE? She had as much international standing as others who have and she works to promote youth opera. Was she considered too bolshie?)
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