Dear Listers,
Yesterday would have been the 90th birthday of perhaps the
greatest lyric tenor that ever lived. In light of this I'd like to share
something that happened to me yesterday.
I was in my early morning class (Historical Perspectives of
Vocal Pedagogy) with Dr. Austin and three other students. As the
class went along I said, " lets make sure we all go home and
play some of our favorite Jussi records to remember his 90th
birthday." We then spoke about Jussi and his amazing voice for
a while.
Later in the day I went to my voice lesson. Since I'm
singing Handel's "Waft her Angels"- I brought in a recording of
Peerce singing it on LP. When I went over to the record player
there was a record there that just said "La Boheme" on it. I took
it off and asked Dr. Austin, "who was the tenor on this." He said
he had not listerned to it yet because it was a loose record he
found in some old stuff he had.
Anyway, late last night I was studying in Austin's office and I
remember that I still had not played a recording of Jussi all day.
Still wondering who was on the Boheme LP, I decided to put it
on- near the middle of side one. The FIRST thing I heard were
the words, "Che gelida manina" sung by -you guessed it- Jussi
Bjoerling. A great feeling came over me as I thought about how
his singing has touched my heart over the years.
If anyone else has JB stories to share, please do.
We miss you Jussi....
Take Care All,
Taylor L. Ferranti
Doctoral Candidate in Vocal Pedagogy
LSU
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