Grace Moore: The Opera Ain't Over Till the Fat Lady Sings; But Are All Opera Singers Really "Fat"?

I don't like opera. Further, I am willing to defend the position that opera is pretty much a uselessly stylized, bastard art form unsuccessfully mating a "story" with costumes and a very artificial kind of singing ("artificial" in the sense that it relies more on using the extreme ranges of the human voice in a "classical" manner, rather than on the more "natural" singing style of the American musical). Yes, opera seems absolutely made for snobs, and mainly snobs seem to like it. Sorry. I call them the way I see them. Still, there is no doubt the SINGING can be very impressive. I just see no purpose to the surrounding trappings of a full opera. Why not just have a singer singing? People like me are less bored by that than by sitting through a "story" we have no chance of undrestanding--and which I don't think you can understand even if you know the language, unlesss you have a really good ability to "hear" and interpret songs.


See the recent entry about Yogi Berra's (attributed to him, anyway) famous statement, applying opera to baseball: "The game ain't over till the fat lady sings.". Yogi obviously shares my irreverent attitude toward opera.


But are all female opera divas "fat"? Nope. This entry is actaully a discussion of Grace Moore, and specifically "One Night of Love" (movie rating 71 out of 100). Grace Moore was an opera singer, circal 1930, who became a movie star. She was not fat. She, in fact, was pretty gorgeous--as you would expect of a movie star. But she could definitely sing opera, and "One Night of Love" is filled with her songs (real opera songs, and NOT an opera star "slumming" with pop music, even if the opera world DID think she was slumming).


Rober Osborne (TCM) describe "One Night of Love" as a "terrific movie". Not so. It is only a "terrific movie" if you love opera singing. The story line (old one of student falling in love with her master teacher, and vice versa) is very simple, and only competently acted. The "story" is reallly little more than an excuse for Grace Moore to sing opera, which she does very well (to my untrained ear).


However, the movie is well worth seeing, even if you don't much like opera (my attitude). The simple story is pleasant, and the singing is impressive (without having to sit through an entire opera). It is sort of the painless (relatively), Cliff Notes way of being exposed to opera.


Plus, of course, you get to see real live evidence that a female opera singer doe not HAVE to be "built like a tank". How do you know that people other than cretins like Yogi (who may like opera, for all I know) and me have an image of female opra singers as "fat"? Well, "One Night of Love", made in the 1930's, TELLS you exactly that, as the "maestro" comments that he is glad to have found such an impressive female voice, for a change, not in a female form "built like a tank".


I invite anyone who LIKES opera to comment and explain why I am totally wrong about it. In the meantime, you can be assured that "One Night of Love" is a movie most of you will at least mildly enjoy, so long as you can take "classic", black and white movies without today's gross crudity. Further, Grace Moore is pleasant on the eyes, and lacks the haughty manner (on screen, anyway) associated with most opera divas. The movie is pleasant all around, if not "terrific". LYes, Robert Obsborne is a little bit of a snobbish, stuffed shirt (not too annoying in the small doses you get of him on TCM).