TIMELY RETIREMENT

posted by James Reel

    Upon the announcement Friday that soprano Anna Moffo had died at age 73, affectionate tributes began to appear in print and cyberspace, but most had to mention that Moffo went into serious vocal decline by her 40s. I’ve enjoyed many of Moffo’s recordings from the 1950s and ’60s, but unfortunately my only experience of her “live” was a negative one. Around 1980 or so, during the George Trautwein years, the Tucson Symphony engaged her to sing … I can’t remember exactly what. Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer? Some of Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne? All I recall is that her voice was in poor shape, with a big wobble and a tendency to scoop into notes. It’s a pity that despite all the fine work she’d done earlier, that’s my strongest memory of her.
    A few musicians seem to be able to perform well forever; tenors Alfredo Kraus and Hugues Cuénod sang admirably, well beyond the time the Social Security checks should have started rolling in, and Earl Wild is still a tremendously effective pianist at age 90. Of course, instrumentalists tend to last longer than singers, but even they have their limits. Child prodigy Yehudi Menuhin began to lose control of his bow arm early, but gave concerts and recorded for another 30 years anyway. Isaac Stern kept it together much longer than Menuhin, but even he was in serious decline when he last played in Tucson in the early to mid 1990s. What is it that drives musicians to keep performing even when it’s clear they shouldn’t? Vanity, or a belief that idiot audiences can’t tell the difference? When Glynn Ross took over Arizona Opera in the 1980s, he figured he could boost ticket sales with a bit of star power, and hired some of his old friends, with the emphasis on “old.” What pleasure did anyone take in hearing James McCracken bark his way through a role, or Mary Costa deliver such an embarrassing Merry Widow that she had to be replaced by her understudy after opening night?
    Beverly Sills and Jascha Heifetz had the good sense to withdraw from performance while they were still near their peak, and aside from the occasional off night, they left the public with nothing but positive memories. If only more artists would follow suit. Worse things could be said toward the end of an artist’s life than “Whatever happened to Soprano X? She was so wonderful!”