Saturday, September 14, 2013

WQXR Operavore: 'Kennedy Center Honor a Flourish to Martina Arroyo's Remarkable Career'

Martina Arroyo

Sergio A. Mims alerted us to the selection of Martina Arroyo for the Kennedy Center Honor:

Friday, September 13, 2013 - 11:00 AM


On August 31, 2012, I published an article entitled, “Who Should Receive the Kennedy Center Honors?” In it I gave a long, reasoned and highly opinionated list of performing artists I felt should receive these awards. 
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 l mentioned  four: Martina Arroyo, Samuel Ramey, Regina Resnik and Renata Scotto. 


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You can imagine my delight in reading this announcement when it came over the virtual transom early in the morning of September 12, 2013:
"The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today announced the selection of the five individuals who will receive the 2013 Kennedy Center Honors. Recipients to be honored at the 36th annual national celebration of the arts are: opera singer Martina Arroyo; pianist, keyboardist, bandleader and composer Herbie Hancock; pianist, singer and songwriter Billy Joel; actress Shirley MacLaine; and musician and songwriter Carlos Santana. The Honors Gala will be recorded for broadcast on the CBS Network for the 36th consecutive year as a two-hour primetime special on Sunday, December 29 at 9 pm. (ET/PT)."
All of these artists richly deserve this accolade, but opera lovers have a particular reason to rejoice in the selection of Martina Arroyo. The 76-year-old, Harlem-born soprano is beloved. To have some sense of how endearing she is, watch this interview that was recorded in 2010 when she received the National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honor.
Arroyo had a long career in major theaters in the United States and Europe. She sang in three opening nights at the Met, a theater where she gave nearly two hundred performances. She began and ended with Verdi. In 1959, her debut came offstage as the Celestial Voice in Don Carlo. It ended, brilliantly, as Aïda, on October 31, 1986, a performance I had the pleasure of hearing.

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In 2003, she established the Martina Arroyo Foundation and, with it, a program called "Prelude to Performance" in which she and other artists and teachers train young singers in the dramatic elements of their roles. Most programs of this kind focus on the musical aspects of a role, which is of course crucial. But this program goes further by teaching young artists how to dig into their characters in all ways. At its conclusion, in mid-July, the students trained by the Arroyo Foundation perform in two full productions of the operas they have learned.
Tony Randall, a huge opera lover, engaged her to appear on The Odd Couple. Her natural charm, excellent singing, and ability to deliver a funny line even brought the famously cantankerous sportscaster Howard Cosell to his knees.

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