Well, just when I'm happy with no recording trauma, I get a phone call about one of our singers being unhappy singing one of Herbert's German lieder bcause she says it's a man's song. The cover of the music says it's composed for either an Alto or a Baritone but she's having la problem . I'm so used to singers singing in classical song about their affection for the same sex that I wasn't bothered as she was. Marilyn Horne sings "I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair," Benjamin Britten arranges "The Trees They Grow So High" for a tenor, the Boswell Sisters and Ethel Waters recorded "Dinah," and we've got Jeanne Lehman singing two masculine songs written for star Madge Ellis, a male impersonator from vaudeville, on the recording, and I have no problem with a woman singing the song. I guess this singer will be turning down any offers to sing Geschwitz, the lesbian in Alban Berg's opera LULU!
So, the gist is, I've got to find a baritone with a classically trained instrument to sing this damned number now, three weeks before we record it and I'm not happy at the moment.
