In the old days, studios would bring opera stars into movies. Some were successful - Nelson Eddy, Jeanette McDonald, Grace Moore, Lawrence Tibbett, Lauritz Melchior, Tony Martin, Mario Lanza and others. A few made a stab at it but weren't quite right. Lily Pons is one of those.
When Pons was in her sixties, I was a young student studying voice and for some reason my mother was always throwing her in my face. I have no idea why - she would occasionally show up at a gala and there's no way she had any high notes at that age - your cords thicken - so I have no idea what she was doing.
Anyway, she was very famous. For some reason, again in the old days, opera houses didn't mind that these singers had voices the size of a mosquito. Unreal.
Pons stars here in "Hitting a New High" from 1937. She plays Suzette, who sings with her boyfriend's (John Howard) band, but her heart is in opera, and she wants an audition with the great opera impresario Mr. Mazzini (Eduardo Cianelli) desperately. When she meets a big patron's assistant Corny (Jack Oakie), she tells him that she will do anything to get in to see Mr. Mazzini.
Corny arranges for his boss Lucius Blynn (Edward Everett Horton) to "discover" Suzette in the jungle and bring her back to New York. When he first sees her, she is singing to the birds and can't speak English. They call her the "Bird Girl."
Blynn brings her back to New York, fixes her up with a vocal coach, and then tries to convince Mazzini to hear her. Suzette has gotten a lot of publicity as the Bird Girl but her boyfriend Jimmy insists that she sing with his band in the evening. One night, Mazzini hears her and thinks he's made a great discovery.
The movie was amusing, thanks to Eric Blore as a band member who tries to get money from Blynn by saying he's Bird Girl's long lost father, Edward Everett Horton, and Jack Oakie.
Pons sings Air du Rossignol, Je suis Titania, and the Mad Scene from Lucia. Pons was a smart woman and very fashionable; she was pretty and petite. Her signature role was Lakme, which is not done much today.
Pons was a true coloratura, the highest soprano voice, and stuck with those roles. She did not have much of a middle voice; real coloraturas don't. She did have an excellent, fast coloratura technique; some of her high notes were better than others. She could be a very exciting singer.
Like many female singers from that era, her voice was small. But at least she stuck to her repertoire - I mean, Jeanette MacDonald sang Tosca which is ridiculous. She retired in 1973 - I have no idea what she sang at that point.
This film was a major flop, and Pons' last that wasn't a "concert film." Well, my mother always liked her.
