To find out what I sound like, click on the links provided on this website which will lead you to those specific YouTube entries. Whether or not I want to have my name there, it’s there. Why? My voice is a throwback to the likes of Maria Callas, Rosa Ponselle, and Kirsten Flagstad—at least up until I hit age 59.
Pre-59, I had been taught by an important NYC conductor immediately after arriving in NYC. My voice was huge, heroic, and Wagnerian in scope. I was lucky to work with Edwin McArthur, Kirsten Flagstad’s conductor. How did this happen? I went to a Lutheran Church in Queens one Sunday. My voice stood out over a big congregation of people on the hymns, and, as I left the church, I was approached by a member of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus. She recommended me to her coach, Leila Edwards. I sang for Leila Edwards one time, and she said, “You are a Wagnerian soprano, and you need to work with a Wagner specialist,” and so I ended up with Edwin McArthur, Flagstad’s preferred conductor.
Initially, I sang a lot of heroic repertoires in NYC. Then in my early 50s, my voice began to shift, and at 59, I sang my first “The Queen of the Night” with the repeated high Fs! At this moment (see the crazy pic of me on the Turandot clip), I am a large-voiced lyric coloratura soprano since I can manage all the major Mad Scenes in Italian opera easily.