This Week in Classical Music-July 25, 2010

by: Randy Kinkel

July 25, 2010

Deborah Voigt

( Phoenix, AZ )
•Voigt tries Musical
•Original "Molly" found?

This Week in Classical Music-July 25, 2010

It’s This Week in Classical Music, an update on what’s happening in the classical music world; I’m Randy Kinkel.

Deborah Voigt is just a girl who can’t say “no”. She’ll be singing that tune among others as a part of her next project, a Glimmerglass Opera Festival Production of the Musical “Anne Get your Gun” Next Summer. Like many American singers, Voigt performed in musicals in high school but hasn’t since, although she does include some American standards in her recitals. “This is sort of uncharted territory for me, which is what’s exciting about it,” Ms. Voigt said in an interview. “It’s daunting because it’s going into a completely new area, and certainly not one my operatic fan base is used to seeing me in. Yeah, I may be putting a toe over the line. But that’s what’s in me. Debbie Voigt is more than just Strauss, Verdi and Wagner.” She says the part is a good fit for her, and seemed like a logical progression from her recent appearance as Minnie in Puccini’s “Girl of the Golden West,” which she sang this past season with the San Francisco Opera and will take on this coming season with the Chicago Lyric Opera and Metropolitan Opera. Puccini’s opera is coming up on the 100th anniversary of its premiere.

The traditional Irish ballad “Molly Malone” might be older than we think. A tiny book from the 18th century has proved to contain a version of the Molly Malone ballad that predates the Dublin Anthem by about a century. The song is found on page 78 of a volume called “Apollo’s Medley-- the most popular and admired songs sung at the Theatre Royal and other public places of amusement" published in 1790. the older Song is much simpler than the younger one, containing no cockles or mussels, but only a simple love song to Molly-- Be poison, my drink, If I sleep, snore, or wink, Once forgetting to think, Of your lying alone." is one of the stanzas – Finder Anne Brichto of Addyman Books has removed the little book from her online catalogue, hoping some Irish public collection may want to acquire it. She much prefers hers to the mawkishly fishy version: "If I had ever had a love poem written as honestly and prettily about me, I would have wanted it to be read hundreds of years on."

For more on these and other items and events, go to the website, kbaq.org; find us on Facebook and Twitter, be listening each week at this time for another update; and join me every weekday at noon for The Mozart Buffet, an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries. I’m Randy Kinkel for “This week in Classical Music” on 89.5 KBAQ Phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.