MARION TALLEY - VOCAL ARTISTRY OF MARION TALLEY CD

SKU/Barcode: 021475010806

Marion Talley, the "Kansas City Canary," enjoyed a rise and fall as meteoric as any coloratura diva could expect to have. Nevertheless, Cambria Records' disc Vocal Artistry of Marion Talley makes clear that her career was longer -- and her artistry more substantive -- than established wisdom would have you believe. Talley's career began as a child prodigy in Kansas City and some of the movers and shakers in her hometown helped put the teenaged Talley through top-level singing training. When she made her debut in 1926 she was, at age 19, the youngest diva ever to appear in a Metropolitan Opera production. Her career at the Met only lasted three seasons, and she later tried to make it as a Hollywood star in the mold of her contemporary, Grace Moore. That didn't pan out in the end, and by the outbreak of World War II Talley was no longer in the public eye. While some sources insist that the wrap on her career occurred a bit before Black Tuesday; Cambria Records' Vocal Artistry of Marion Talley confirms this isn't the case. The recordings are sequenced for listening pleasure and not for chronological purpose, but the earliest selection does appear first; it's a rare test pressing of an audition record made by Talley at age 17 in 1923 and demonstrates that her boosters in Kansas City were not overreaching in regard to nurturing her gift. The bulk of the recordings comes from the late '20s, most being made under contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company, and agreement that ended at the same time Talley's service with the Met did. From among the Victor material comes two glorious, previously unpublished duets with legendary contralto Louise Homer. Also included are two of Talley's Vitaphone film soundtracks, among the earliest operatic films in direct sound produced in America. Her "Caro nome" from Rigoletto did Talley more harm than good owing to the way it played out on-screen; however, nothing is wrong with her singing. The other Vitaphone track is a marvelously intense rendering of the quartet from Rigoletto, "Bella figlia dell'amore" with Beniamino Gigli, Giuseppe de Luca, and Jeanne Gordon. Finally, there are some excerpts from a late radio broadcast dating from 1938, and Talley sounds as good -- if not better -- here as in any of her Victor and Vitaphone recordings. Soon after that, Talley retired into a life of semi-seclusion in Hollywood, having appeared in one unsuccessful feature and enduring three failed marriages, with the divorce proceedings relentlessly covered by tabloid journalism. One of the little known assets of the Cambria label is that it has an extensive historical catalog in addition to its Grammy-winning series of recordings by Southwest Chamber Music and others; this Talley disc is the only one to showcase her talents. The sound quality is naturally variable, mainly owing to the condition of source discs, but it's honest; with a coloratura you really wouldn't want to take out all of the shellac swish as a fair amount of the voice is located in that band. Talley is practically the only operatic soprano who makes the average American think of baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie; even in her Verdi there is a wholesome American-ness to the voice. It is undesirable to use the adjective "matronly" to describe such a young singer, but she does sound a little like mother, albeit in youthful and energetic bloom rather than in maturity. Listeners weaned on Maria Callas will note a lack of sensuality to Talley's singing, but that was not the point of it. What attracted listeners to Talley in the 1920s was the sweet, honest goodness of her singing, a property easier to grasp in the early days of radio than in later, more cynical times, characterized by singers whose voices are measured to a rigid standard that tends to hold them to a rather narrowly described mean. Talley's voice will find an audience with listeners for whom personality is a plus, and it's well worth discovering, and {