Marilyn Horne

Directed by Nigel Wattis

English commentary with French and German subtitles

Marilyn Horne is acclaimed as the finest mezzo soprano of the twentieth century, with a voice known for its brilliant sound and its extraordinary range. Her career has spanned everything from Grand Opera to light entertainment and pirate recordings of pop singles. She started singing in public when she was just three years old and for over thirty years she has been at the top of her profession. Home’s greatest contribution to music has been in developing and popularising the mezzo soprano repertoire of composers such as Rossini and she was the first non-Italian ever to win the coveted Rossini Medal, honouring her as the greatest singer in the world.

This programme looks back over Marilyn Horne’s long and remarkable career, celebrating her formidable achievements and giving an insight into her unique talent. Specially-shot performance items, together with archive footage and recordings, demonstrate her magnificent vocal ability and at the heart of the profile is an interview in which the engaging and dynamic singer talks about her life and her music.

The film visits Marilyn Horne’s home town of Bradford, Pennsylvania, and travels with her to Long Beach, California, where her family moved when she was eleven years old. Here she talks about her early days: singing in church choirs, making recordings for television sitcoms with the Robert Wagner Chorale, cutting pirate pop records and acting as voice double for Dorothy Dandridge in Otto Preminger’s film Carmen Jones. A clip from the movie displays Marilyn Horne’s astonishing powers of imitation. She touches on the rich musical life that existed in California at that time and on her association with Stravinsky. The composer dedicated his last work to Horne and encouraged her to go to Europe to further her career as an opera singer.

It was her work with Dame Joan Sutherland in the bel canto operas of composers such as Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, that first brought Marilyn Horne major stardom in the mid-1960s. Dame Joan is one of the contributors to the programme and talks about the chemistry that made their performances together so special. Other contributors include her former husband and good friend, the conductor Henry Lewis, fellow American singer Samuel Ramey and her biographer Jane Scovell.

Highlights of the programme include coverage of Horne’s final appearance in a Rossini opera -Isabella in L’Italiana in Algeri recorded at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in 1993 -and of the gala recital at Carnegie Hall in January 1994, which marked her sixtieth birthday and the launch of the Marilyn Horne Foundation, set up to revive the art of the vocal recital in America. Her passion for this cause is matched by her commitment to training young singers and she is seen giving a masterclass during the Cardiff Singer of the World competition. An archive clip recalls one of Horne’s finest moments, when, as President Clinton’s favourite classical singer, she sang at his inauguration in Washington in 1993, a performance watched by hundreds of millions of television viewers. Another side of Horne’s vivacious personality emerges in a clip from the Carol Burnett Show, in which she features in a song and dance routine.