For Valentine’s Day this year, enjoy (or not - chacun à son goût, dahling) some musical and visual inspirations about love, and nostalgia.
An appropriate visual, above, is Eustache Le Seuer’s Bacchus and Ariadne at the local art house. There are obvious reasons to love this painting (do I really have to tell you?), but I’d call your attention to Ariadne’s lips. Back in the 1970s when it was called Persian Melon my mother wore it as lipstick.
Many former musical obsessions are appropriate for today:
Jerry Hadley (may he rest in peace) and Frederica von Stade sing “You Are Love” from Show Boat. Fond as I am of Irene Dunne and Allan Jones, Jerry and Frederica bring so much immediacy to the song in this performance.
Nelson Eddy sings “Auf Wiedersehen” by Sigmund Romberg. The verse - meh - but the chorus almost makes me weep. Helen Traubel also sings it in Romberg biopic Deep in my Heart for dying, poignantly radiant Merle Oberon. (The way Merle says “Anna, please” will just break your heart.)
Speaking of Merle Oberon, I discovered this only yesterday, the waltz and love theme from 1941’s Lydia in which she starred. God bless Miklós Rózsa, he knew what he was doing!
Caro Emerald’s “A Night Like This.” I discovered her ten years later than everyone else. So what?
“Wanting You” sung by basso fabuloso Lawrence Tibbett and Grace Moore. I used to be addicted to the Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald recording from New Moon, but I just tried to listen to it again, and Nelson is so nasal! Tibbett does not have that problem! And you can just see Grace Moore falling under his spell.
“One Heavenly Night” sung by Evelyne Laye and John Boles. Years ago the Yewtybbe had a clip of them singing this in a movie, which I loved so much I changed the last lyric to “I’ll overact one long heavenly niiiiiight wiiiiiith youuuuuuu!” But it’s gone now. :-(
Ava Gardner sings “How Am I to Know” to Marius Goring at the beginning of Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. Daddy introduced me to this movie, and I love it, and especially this song.
Petula Clark’s “This Is My Song.”
Richard Tauber’s “My Heart and I” from his operetta Old Chelsea. Pick it up at 01:46, “Everything I would endure for you” and just ride the roller coaster. Just when you think all the angels in the chorus have sounded out, a few hundred more join in. Sure, you’ll laugh - I laugh through my tears every time.
Moondog’s instrumental for strings and woodwinds “Ode to Venus” was introduced to me by a friend five years or so ago. Whip out your hankies.
I can’t think of a better representation of enduring love than this photo of my parents at their 60th wedding anniversary party in 2015.
And there’s this important message in sculpture.
Seen in Boston a couple years ago on the waterfront.
Because I just discovered it yesterday, I have to return to 1941’s Lydia and Merle’s remembrance of her first ball. “We don’t have ballrooms like that any more,” says one of her former suitors, and she responds “My breath stopped when I went in . . . I’ve seen a great many ballrooms since, very nice ones, but none as wonderful as that one. I entered the room as one enters in a dream, walking on air. Do you remember the graceful way people walked on those mirrorlike floors. Thousands of mirrors on the walls.” Skip of 07:25 and enjoy this dream of a beautiful past.
To conclude, I give you Mary Ellis in Glamorous Night singing the title song as well as “Fold Your Wings.” “Can’t we regain that delight, can’t we kiss and recapture that rapturous, glamorous night?”
Have a glamorous night for yourself tonight, dahlings!