La Gran Scena Opera Company
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The operatic era to which La Gran Scena really belongs is not the present but the 50s and 60s–the Age of Big Hair. The logistics of the company’s hairdressing and wig-transportation needs are awesome to contemplate. The divas are introduced with a memorable rendition of “The Ride of the Valkyries,” featuring spears and bouffant hairdos–short a couple of sisters, but it’s still fun. Sylvia Bills (Jay Rogers), “America’s most beloved retired diva,” serves as the malaprop emcee, introducing artists and numbers and swilling vodka from a water glass. Attired in a wig that appears to have been styled with a Mixmaster and a gown that might very well have clothed Violetta in a 1965 production of La traviata at New York City Opera, she gets off some of the evening’s best lines, many of which have to do with tenors and their long tradition of intellectual impairment, along with sly digs at her colleagues–and her alter ego.
But the prima donna assoluta of La Gran Scena is its founder and only occupant of soprano roles, Vera Galupe-Borszkh, ne Ira Siff. Described as a combination of Callas’s histrionics and Renata Tebaldi’s hair, Madame Galupe-Borszkh–“La Dementia,” as she’s known to legions of fans–dominates the proceedings, whether simply acting (as Aida in leopard-print chiffon and red knee pads in the judgment scene), schmoozing in a thick Russian accent punctuated by Noo Yawk-isms (describing the Athenaeum as “this–how you say in English?–dump”), or singing (her high notes definitely peel paint).
The program notes that La Gran Scena was the second-act “entertainment” in a production of Die Fledermaus at L’Opera de Montreal. Perhaps Lyric Opera could be persuaded to hire the group for that show–it’d be a lot more fun than yet another tedious ballet sequence. And Madame Galupe-Borszkh could have the thrill of singing with “the opera company that actually banned a tenor!”
