Marilyn Horne

SANTA BARBARA - On Oct. 11, 1954, a 20-year-old soprano, a recent graduate of USC, performed in the premiere of a new version of Igor Stravinsky's "Four Russian Peasant Songs" at the new and unusual music series Monday Evening Concerts, then held in an auditorium in West Hollywood Park. An all-American, a tomboy with the nickname Jackie, she would be singing Russian for the first time in her life, and the 74-year-old Russian composer, who had relocated to West Hollywood, coached her in the language at his home above Sunset Boulevard.

SANTA BARBARA - On Oct. 11, 1954, a 20-year-old soprano, a recent graduate of USC, performed in the premiere of a new version of Igor Stravinsky's "Four Russian Peasant Songs" at the new and unusual music series Monday Evening Concerts, then held in an auditorium in West Hollywood Park. An all-American, a tomboy with the nickname Jackie, she would be singing Russian for the first time in her life, and the 74-year-old Russian composer, who had relocated to West Hollywood, coached her in the language at his home above Sunset Boulevard.

In exemplary voice and with her usual panache, Marilyn Horne strode onto the stage of the Alex Theatre on Friday night and sang what will no doubt prove to be one of the most provocative and entertaining recitals of the season. Through five years away from a local recital stage, Horne has deprived her Southern California fans; returning, she delivered a reminder of her still-wondrous abilities as a communicative artist.

As famed mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne turns 74 today, she adds another milestone to her long list of accolades: "Prima donna -- and survivor." Two years after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the same disease that killed her friend and fellow opera star Luciano Pavarotti, she is said to be free of it. And for the first time, she is talking publicly about her experimental cancer treatment in the hope that it might help others. Horne, who is director of the voice program at Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, was at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center last week, getting another dose of a new cancer vaccine that has so far been administered to only about 200 people.

Marilyn Horne has been enjoying camping trips to Algiers, or an unreasonable Italianate facsimile thereof, for a long time. She has a very good travel agent: Gioachino Rossini. The diva from Bradford, Pa., via Long Beach first ventured the florid flights, the comic indulgences and amorous pretenses of "L'Italiana in Algeri" at the modest (now defunct) San Francisco Spring Opera in 1964.

In the larger-than-life opera world, where temperamental divas reign, Marilyn Horne is an anomaly. Considered one of the greatest mezzo-sopranos in history, Horne, 67, has forged a reputation as a hard-working team player. Although many perceive opera stars' lives as glamorous, Horne dispels that myth. To be the best, she said, one must submit to "unremitting toil." "This is a very grueling profession," she said.

For a long, long time, American audiences labored under the happy delusion that George Frideric Handel--a.k.a. Georg Friedrich Haendel--was a German composer who somehow got himself Anglicized so he could write a "Hallelujah" chorus and some Water Music. Now, in time for Handel's 300th birthday celebrations, we have begun to know better. We realize, at last, that Handel was a German composer who somehow got himself Anglicized so he could write ornate Italian operas.

Opera has become the bright star on the dim horizon of classical music in America, and for 40 years Marilyn Horne has been part of what gives that star its luster. The opera audience grew 25% from 1982 to 1992, and another 10% from 1993 to 1995, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. At the same time, vocal recitals haven't enjoyed the same growth--or any growth, really--so the famed mezzo soprano has lent her support to this struggling form in recent years.

Marilyn Horne at 71: singer, teacher, grandmother -- and now winner of a lifetime achievement award. "I think that I'm making a difference for a lot of young singers," said the mezzo-soprano, who received the award here Monday from London-based Gramophone magazine, considered an authority in the classical recording industry.

"Patriotism," Samuel Johnson said, "is the last refuge of a scoundrel." He didn't add, "and aging mezzo-sopranos." But then Johnson wasn't at Hollywood Bowl Sunday night for the first of three presentations of the "America the Beautiful" program featuring John Mauceri, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, fireworks and mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne in the role of Kate Smith. Those in search of genuine musical moments (they are possible at the Bowl) had to look elsewhere.

Mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne has pancreatic cancer and is undergoing treatment that offers an excellent chance for full recovery, her manager said Thursday. Horne, 72, was diagnosed in mid-December, said Denise Pineau of Columbia Artists Management. "There is no reason to anticipate any changes in her schedule," Pineau said. Horne, who retired from the stage in 1999, directs the vocal program at the Music Academy of the West, a summer school and festival in Santa Barbara.

Marilyn Horne at 71: singer, teacher, grandmother -- and now winner of a lifetime achievement award. "I think that I'm making a difference for a lot of young singers," said the mezzo-soprano, who received the award here Monday from London-based Gramophone magazine, considered an authority in the classical recording industry.

In the larger-than-life opera world, where temperamental divas reign, Marilyn Horne is an anomaly. Considered one of the greatest mezzo-sopranos in history, Horne, 67, has forged a reputation as a hard-working team player. Although many perceive opera stars' lives as glamorous, Horne dispels that myth. To be the best, she said, one must submit to "unremitting toil." "This is a very grueling profession," she said.

Marilyn Horne says it's a matter of "been there, done that." "The big roles are behind me. It's a lot of sitting in hotels. I decided I don't need this anymore," says Horne, who said goodbye to opera in 1996 and to classical recitals in 1999. She hasn't given up singing altogether, though, and she's active as a teacher at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara and, most of all, as the head of her own foundation, which is devoted to helping young singers.

Few people in this past century have done more for the collaborative art of recital accompaniment than did Gwendolyn Koldofsky, who died late last year at age 92. USC paid tribute Sunday afternoon to its longtime faculty member with a varied recital program in Bovard Auditorium, featuring former Koldofsky students, including revered diva Marilyn Horne.

When Marilyn Horne arrived as head of the vocal department at the Music Academy of the West a few years ago, it was big news in the operatic arena, not to mention a tremendous boon to the regional music world. She conferred renewed integrity and celebrity on the academy, already well-known for its vocal talents over the years, with such notables as Lotte Lehmann and Martial Singher in the faculty of yore.

Sitting in the second row at the Terrace Theater in Long Beach, watching enraptured as Marilyn Horne sang romantic arias from famous and not-so-famous Italian and French operas backed by an orchestra of black-suited musicians, Terry Barkis let out a little exclamation of his own. "At 16 years old she used to sing like that at our dining room table," said Barkis, 54, a salesman in the oil industry who does not particularly like opera but loves this particular opera star.

Marilyn Horne says it's a matter of "been there, done that." "The big roles are behind me. It's a lot of sitting in hotels. I decided I don't need this anymore," says Horne, who said goodbye to opera in 1996 and to classical recitals in 1999. She hasn't given up singing altogether, though, and she's active as a teacher at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara and, most of all, as the head of her own foundation, which is devoted to helping young singers.

A black grand piano dominates the stark set. At stage-left is a chair and a desk with a music stand, scores and a box of tissues. The expectant buzz of the capacity audience's pre-performance chatter becomes enthusiastic applause when the diva finally enters. Determinedly smiling, patently nervous student singers follow in sequence. Terrence McNally's hit play "Master Class," right? Wrong.

It seems almost laughable now, the founding of the Music Academy of the West here, 50 years ago, by the then-music critic of this paper, Isabel Morse Jones. For the previous decade Los Angeles had been, by any reasonable standards, one of the most important musical cities in the world.