An unexpected (and lovely) surprise for my Memorial Day weekend: I thought I’d be spending it with Wolf-Ferrari, but tonight and tomorrow night, I have some additional companions…
WTOC alum Paul Appleby was invited by Garrison Keillor to sing on A Prairie Home Companion at Wolf Trap this weekend, and I was in turn invited by Paul to join him for a little Tchaikovsky. We’re offering Lenski’s aria tonight at the show at the Filene Center, and perhaps it’ll make it onto the broadcast tomorrow night! You never know :)
APHC is a fascinating radio-show-on-the-road, and as I write, Paul is sitting in with The Guy’s All Star Shoe Band, singing some Paul Simon and chiming in with Garrison on a Memorial Day medley.
One of my most treasured recordings is of Toscanini (with the NBC Symphony, Jan Peerce and The Westminster Choir)performing Verdi’s “Hymn of the Nations” in 1943. Because Toscanini included “The Internationale”, the full version of the recording was “censored” for many years during the cold war. However, to me, the highlight is Toscanini’s addition of the “Star Spangled Banner at the end of piece. I have never heard our national anthem so beautifully performed.
I was there Saturday night and was transfixed by Paul’s ability to sing so emotionally in the aria and also be as thrilling with the other songs, especially Paul Simon’s American Tune. His WTO training shows. Kudos to Paul and to you, Kim!
I was entranced by Paul’s singing of Lenski’s Aria. His singing makes the Russian language seem to come alive, in a way I’ve never heard before.
I heard it during a repeat of the Garrison Keillor show on the BBC in the UK in 2014, so it’s too late for me to listen to it again; it doesn’t seem to be online any more.
Can anyone tell me if Paul ever made a commercially available recording of this? I would buy it like a shot!
Thanks