The Writer's Almanac from Saturday, December 2, 2000
The Writer's Almanac from Saturday, December 2, 2000
For a Daughter Gone Away by Brendan Galvin, found in The Yellow Shoe Poets (Louisiana State University Press).
It’s the birthday of soprano Maria Callas, born Maria Anna Sophia Cecilia Kalogeropoulos, in Brooklyn, NY (1923). Her father shortened the family name soon after Maria was born. At 11 she sang “La Paloma” on a radio contest. Her parents separated when she was 13, and her mother took her back to Greece to live, where she attended the Athens National Conservatory. Her first important role was that of Tosca, one of the many with which she would be identified. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1956, in the role of Norma. She’s the subject of two plays Terence McNally: The Lisbon Traviata and Master Class.
It’s the birthday of lyricist Adolph Green, born in the Bronx, New York (1915). At New York University, he joined a troupe called the Washington Square Players, where he met his lifelong writing partner, Betty Comden. They collaborated with Leonard Bernstein on the musical Wonderful Town, with Jule Styne on Peter Pan and Bells Are Ringing, and they wrote the screenplay for Singin’ in the Rain.
It’s the birthday of physicist and inventor Peter David Goldmark, born in Budapest, Hungary (1906). In 1954, Goldmark invented a tube that became the industry standard for color television sets. He also invented long-playing record—the “LP”—which held twenty minutes of music on a side.
It’s the birthday of actress and monologist Ruth Draper, born in New York City (1884). Alone on a stage, with a table and a chair, her only costume a shawl, Draper created complete, fully populated dramas.
It’s the birthday of pointillist painter Georges-Pierre Seurat, born in Paris, France (1859). He used a technique he called Divisionism—it later came to be known as Pointillism – where, instead of mixing his colors on the palette, he applied them unmixed in tiny dabs on the canvas, believing they would merge in an “optical mixture” in the viewer’s eye.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®
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Callas in Greece, and for a while in America, was a pudgy bel canto specialist, and grew into her riveting Tosca only in maturity. I suspect that if Tosca had been her first role, it would have been her last.