Thoughtful Mezzo

In Philadelphia last week, Mezzo-Soprano Blanche Thebom declaimed the bitter story of Medea to the subdued accompaniment of the Philadelphia Orchestra. It was the world premiere of a 20-minute musical monologue by Atonalist Ernst Krenek, based on Poet Robinson Jeffers' version of the old Greek masterpiece--and one more sample of the broad and busy range of roles that falls to the Metropolitan's Soprano Thebom (pronounced Thee-bom) these days.

In the matter-of-fact tone of a chronicler, she sped through the early lines, told how she, Medea, had lavished her love on her husband Jason, only to have him leave her for another woman. Gradually, with ever-widening vocal leaps and roller-coaster plunges, she worked up to her thoughts of revenge and--with a piccolo shrilling--to the murder of her own and Jason's children. The piece ended in a gloomy postlude. When it was over, the orchestra gave Thebom a concerted "Bravo!", and the audience, once it recovered its composure, called her back five times.

Like most Met stars, handsome Blanche Thebom, 35, spends more of her time making personal appearances than on the Met stage (36 concerts and recitals this season). Unlike most of them, she is always on the lookout for a distinctive score. Two years ago, she met Composer Krenek and suggested to him that Medea was an ideal subject for the dark tones of the mezzo-soprano voice.

Says Thebom: "Most composers, and that includes the ones who are considered to write very well for the voice, make demands upon singers that are impossible." This time she was in on composition's ground floor. She corresponded steadily with Krenek, working over many details of vocal usage. In general, the Thebom-Krenek collaboration put lyrical passages in the low range, declamatory ones in the middle and dramatic outbursts up high. Now she thinks Medea sings as well as any concert work she knows.

Since her debut at the Met (TIME, Feb. 12, 1945), Blanche Thebom has handled her career just as thoughtfully. No longer does she spend all her time at the Met in the heavy-set roles, traditionally doled out to mezzos, e.g., Brangaene and other secondary parts in Wagner operas, Amneris in Aida. Last season, as the Met's English-language repertory grew, she turned comedienne, won all-out approval for her beautiful-but-dumb Dorabella in Cosi Fan Tutte. This year, she went still further afield, took on the bearded lady in Stravinsky's Rake's Progress, and managed to give the grotesque part a feeling of femininity and more than its measure of fun.

Conscious of the debt she owes the music-loving patrons who took her out of a secretary's chair in Canton, Ohio and paid for her musical training, Thebom has set up a fund to help other singers on their way. Before she passes out any cash, she tries to make sure of one thing: the aspiring singers must be as indomitably set on success as Blanche was.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.