Word: pinza
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...with Rodgers and Hammerstein was via my father. He was then director of composition at the Royal College of Music. On my 10th birthday, he interrupted my endless replays of Jailhouse Rock and insisted on playing something for me. Onto the battered 78 r.p.m. record player was plonked Ezio Pinza singing Some Enchanted Evening. Then Dad played the song on the piano. Right then, Rodgers and Hammerstein joined Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers as heroes...
...Though it wasn't impossible to bring up children between performances (Beverly Sills did it), most big-league women singers assumed that having babies would short-circuit their careers, and chose not to. Similarly, opera stars who sang pop music were invariably condemned for pandering to the proles (Ezio Pinza starred in South Pacific, but only after he retired from the Metropolitan Opera). And according to conventional wisdom, niceness was a luxury ambitious sopranos couldn't afford, moving, as they do, in a viciously competitive environment controlled almost entirely by male conductors, directors and managers...