Mercoledi Musicale

Better late than never here's yesterday's Mercoledi Musicale.

My daily visit to a popular, if often irritating, opera website/blog led me to a faintly bizarre excerpt from Derek Jarman's film version of The Tempest. In one of the campiest sequences ever committed to celluloid the nuptials of Miranda and Ferdinand are celebrated by Watteau shepherds and shepherdesses who out-Rococo Rococo, a crew of sailors from a dockside gay bar and at the centre of it the magnificent Elisabeth Welch all tricked out like an Erté golden goddess singing - perhaps as a warning to poor Miranda the way Ferdinand is eying a few of the sailors - Harold Arlen's Stormy Weather.

This led me to several other entries on YouTube that reveal the talents of Elisabeth Welch including this one of her singing her signature tune:  Stormy Weather.  The clip, put together by a poster who goes by the name of StashPuppets, starts with an early film version from 1934-35 segues into the Jarman (1979) and ends with a cabaret performance that Elizabeth Welch gave sometime around 1989-90.  

In the 1920s and 30s were was a migration of black entertainers from the USA to Europe; in the vanguard was Ada "Bricktop" Smith who ran one of the most famous nightclubs in Paris and introduced many performers to Cafe Society.  Others like Alberta Hunter had found their way to Europe after World War I when American Jazz became all the rage. Many others crossed the Atlantic under the banner of Lew Leslie who exported shows with titles like Blackbirds, Shuffle Along or Chocolate Dandies to Europe along with performers such as Josephine Baker and Florence Mills.  Some returned back to the USA but many others stayed and based their careers in a more race-friendly Europe.

Elisabeth Welch arrived in Paris in the late 20s and then moved to London which was to be her home until her death at the age of 99 in 2003.  She first returned to the US in 1931 as a replacement in The New Yorkers, a Jimmy Durante vehicle with music by Cole Porter.   Banned from radio play because of it's risque lyrics Love for Sale was original sang Kathryn Crawford, a white performer, as a prostitute plying her trade on Madison Avenue.  In this clip from a concert Miss Welch recounts how she came to take over the song during the run of the show and make it her own.

Nymph Errant is an strange show - part musical, part revue - it traces the adventures of a proper young lady on a round-the-world attempt to lose her virginity.  Though it premiered in London in 1933 it did not reach North America until the 1980s.  I recall a version at the Shaw Festival that was amusingly staged and rather fun.  Cole Porter often said that it was his favourite show though only two standards came out of it:  Experiment and Solomon, the song he wrote for Elisabeth Welch.

I only wish I could find the complete version of the cabaret performance this was taken from - what little I've seen confirms that she was a charming and witty raconteur and a consummate performer.

*I notice that her name is spelt either Elisabeth or Elizabeth - I believe the first spelling is the correct one.

October 1: 1939 - After a one-month Siege of Warsaw, hostile Nazi forces enter the city.

Mercoledi Musciale

As often happens with this wonderful thing called the Internet I was searching around last evening and one thing led to another. For some reason a Cole Porter song from a musical called Can-Can popped into my head and I went searching or it. I had it firmly set in my mind's ear with the voice of Lilo the first person who sang it when the show premiered in 1953 - no I didn't see it in 1953 but got the album several years later.  Despite a thin premise and almost as thin a libretto the show lasted for over two years on Broadway and transferred to London and of course there was a touring company.  It was thought it would turn its French cabaret star into an international celebrity but the big name to come out of it was Gwen Verdon, who went on to become one of the greats of the Broadway stage.  Aside from Verdon the show's biggest strength was the Porter score:  before the end of the year everyone was recording the two big numbers - I Love Paris and C'est Magnifique.  But what I remember from my original cast recording was a wistful love song filled with all the wit, talent and gift for melody that was decidedly Porter.  I had the throaty Gallic sounds of Lilo in my head but could only find a recording by Kay Starr - not a bad substitute.  Allez-vous en! topped the charts for 11 weeks in 1953 and was just one of a string of hits for Miss Starr, who is apparently still performing at the age of 88.

And that reminded me of a movie that I caught on ARTE  two years ago and immediately added to my small DVD collection.  A year after the Porter musical Jean Renoir the French filmmaker released his tribute to Paris of the Belle Epoque and the dance that set hearts - amongst other things - athumping.  French Can-Can is a glorious piece of fluff with Jean Gabin proving that old can still be sexy, Maria Félix proving that her eye brows were the best actors in the business, Françoise Arnoul proving that pert could be appealing and Edith Piaf - well she had nothing to prove.  As always Renoir treated his subject with love and a great sense of theatre.  And of course being the son of the famous painter and an artist in his own right his sense of colour and movement is galvanizing.  Here's the finale where impresario Henri Danglard (Gabin) has his faith in the old quadrilles danced in Montmartre rewarded.

Both Porter and Renoir loved Paris not just in the springtime but in their work.

15 giugno - Santa Germana Cousin