Word: carmela
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Died. Madalena Ponzillo, 61, mother of Opera Singers Rosa and Carmela Ponsellej of heart disease; in Meriden, Conn. Having refused to move into the mansion her successful daughters had built for her, she died in their little old home in Meriden's Italian quarter...
...evening. He strutted about like a cock in smart, skin-tight costumes which Artist Pablo Picasso had designed for him. He did amazing footwork to a dozen complicated rhythms. He conversed with his castanets, brutally, insolently, insinuatingly. He swelled out his chest and shot meaningful glances at his partners, Carmela and Carmita. He clucked with his tongue, sniffed with his nose, even snapped a fingernail accompaniment to one of his dances...
...dusky acting, applauded lustily when Impresario Maurice Frank thanked her for coming from Hollywood to sing at this benefit (Girls' Service League, Boys' Club of New York). They found her voice sweet but thin, lost in the vast Polo Grounds. More at home were Mezzo-Soprano Carmela Ponselle (sister of Rosa) and Baritone Giuseppe Martino-Rossi. Soprano Gahagan announced she would return to California at once, sing in Jerome Kern's mellifluous The Cat & the Fiddle...
...Rosa Ponselle's penthouse apartment a pair of blue & gold portieres hang as souvenir of the second stage of her career. They are a part of the cyclorama used by the Ponzillo sisters (Carmela & Rosa) in vaudeville. Carmela had gone to New York ahead of Rosa, worked as a cloak model and sung in a cabaret. She and Rosa were engaged for their sister act when they had no money left, no clothes except their street suits. When they arrived at the theatre for their first turn, the manager protested about their clothes. They told a cock-&-bull story about...
After three years on the Keith circuit, the sisters returned to Manhattan. Carmela determined to study seriously. William Thorner, her teacher, happened also to hear Rosa who, nothing daunted, undertook to sing the difficult Casta diva aria from Norma. Thorner interrupted her in the middle of it to call in his friend Enrico Caruso. Caruso prophesied that in two years Rosa would be singing with him. Six months later, as Rosa Ponselle, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut. Impresario Gatti-Casazza picked the name...