Carol Vaness spent an unforgettable Christmas Eve in Italy, where she sang in a service at the cathedral in Assisi. She decided to walk the short distance from her hotel to the church for the service. Since the day had been cloudless, she was surprised to find it lightly raining. Carrying a tiny umbrella that barely covered her head, she started out with her dress in a well covered bag. In order to save weight in her luggage, she had brought only two pairs of shoes along for her four-day trip, neither of which was suitable to wear in the rain. “I just put on my concert shoes (actually, some lovely Bruno Magli I had matched to my gown). All my good intentions swiftly went down the drain, literally, when I got 20 steps from the hotel, and the skies opened up and just as quickly, four inches of rain flowed over my shoes, drenching the lower third of me. Rushing as only rain can encourage, I arrived like a drowned cleaning woman and not much of a diva at all.” A young priest met her at the church, leading her to a place in the monastery where women were allowed. It was dank and freezing cold.
A special makeup crew was on hand to prepare her for the service that would be televised in several countries. Discovering that there was no electricity in that part of the building, they rushed her to the main annex of the church where her makeup was hurriedly applied and her hair was dried under television lights. “I am sure the priests and acolytes had never seen anything like it,” she says.
“As the cardinals, priests, and special guests from the Italian government arrived for this very special occasion (and on TV), we rushed me away into the tiny cold room again to put on my concert wear, completed by the sopping wet hose and ruined, squishy-with-water shoes. Smiling, and praying not to slip on the beautiful marble floor, I went out to sing with the lovely, dry orchestra and maestro . . . and sang the Mozart ‘Exsultate, jubilate’ and Desdemona’s touching ‘Ave Maria,’ both requested for that evening. The cathedral was lit as normally not allowed, revealing such beautiful artwork and ceiling paintings, never really seen by tourists. I felt entirely blessed to be singing this service, seeing this most solemn and joyful of celebrations in wet shoes. After two minutes, I never felt them again with an atmosphere of such devotion surrounding everyone. I was truly blessed—wet or not.”
One of Nicole Cabell’s favorite holiday memories was a magical Christmas Day spent with her mother in Paris. In between jobs in France and on her way to Lyon for a series of New Year’s concerts, she decided to spend three days in Paris. “The life of an opera singer can be very unpredictable—but since I had to be away from home for the holidays, I thought I would make the most of it! My mother joined me and we stayed close to the Louvre on the Right Bank. Each day we explored Paris on foot, despite the cold of winter. Christmas Day was just about as deserted in Paris as it is in the States, but we didn’t care. It felt like we were the only two people alive in Paris that day as we strolled the Marais district, and we happened to find a Chinese restaurant that was open. It might have been an extremely nontraditional Christmas for us but it was perfect, nonetheless.”
Early in her career, Mary Dunleavy was covering a performance of La traviata in Barcelona at the Liceu four days before Christmas. During that day’s performance, she decided to stay in her apartment to decorate a small tree. “I needed a few more ornaments, so I waited until I thought the last act would have begun—that way, it would be ‘safe’ to go to the department store down the street. I had my cell phone on me, and really just by chance I looked at it right before I went down the escalator into the store where I would lose reception. It’s a good thing I checked—the opera house had just called, frantically looking for me because the other soprano had no voice left to finish the show. I ran down the Ramblas (which is not an easy thing to do at Christmas, with tons of shoppers, street performers, and even live animals), got to the opera house, threw on the costume, wig, and some makeup, and got into bed on stage to die as Violetta. It was a great Christmas present.”
Jennifer Larmore remembers her “over the river and through the woods” experiences of her youth. “Every Christmas holiday my family—mom, dad, and four kids—traveled from Atlanta down to Fitzgerald, Georgia, to spend time with my grandmother. All the way down, we would sing carols and popular songs in anticipation of the wonderful days to come. My grandmother had cooked for three days straight, and when we arrived, she would welcome us with arms wide open, a bright red apron, and her famous six-layer fudge cake! Sometime during the holidays, we would push back all the furniture, grab a pot or a pan to beat on, and my uncles and cousins would arrive with their fiddles, autoharps, guitars, and harmonicas ready to play bluegrass and gospel favorites. As I travel all over the world singing, I think of those days, the dear people who made me feel so safe and happy, and the music we made together. It reminds me of where I came from, and I smile in remembrance.”
Mark Crayton’s favorite holiday musical memory also happened to be his European oratorio debut. At the last minute, a colleague asked Mark to substitute for him as soloist in performances of Handel’s Messiah in the Main Hall in Utrecht, the Netherlands. “As I lived in Amsterdam, I had just enough time to get there to shake the conductor’s hand and walk on. After I finished ‘O thou that tellest,’ I sat down. The tenor leaned over and said, ‘Where are you from?’ As we were mid-performance, I meekly looked at him and said, ‘Sarasota, Florida.’ He whispered excitedly, ‘I knew you were from somewhere southern when I heard you sing ‘git thee uhhhp intew thuh high mountin!’ Needless to say, I re-coached this piece paying close attention to hiding my drawl by the next performance!”
