Friday, October 24, 2008

Diva Divissima

I think it's time for a little Friday Civilization. Thinking, a few posts below, about the glittering Miss Lily Pons has put me in the mood for more classics. How about a rather unusual rendering of that staple of parlor recitals the world around, "Il Bacio," by Luigi Arditi?

Guess what? The pint-sized prima donna is not, in fact, the demon spawn of Deanna Durbin and Shirley Temple. No, gentle readers, she is the darling of the Major Bowes Amateur Hour, Little Belle "Bubbles" Silverman - better known as America's favorite future public-television megastar, the one and only Beverly Sills.

At eight, and, as she has always averred, very definitely under the influence of those Galli-Curci recordings with which she was raised. Little girls just don't sing like that any more.

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