Anna Moffo at 3am



Anna Moffo



                                                                                                                                                                
          I wrote this a long time back and just heard this on radio...so am republishing it.

A zillion years ago I was dispatched by my mother to the Music Center in Bay City, Michigan.  I think I was 14 and had to walk.  My parents had discovered that Italy existed and it had food other than Terry and Jerry's Ole Sole Mio spaghetti and meatballs. After growing up to that point with the glop that passes for middle upper Michigan Italian - well the revelations were upon us.

Anyway, every year my parents had a big party at our house for all of my dad's work friends...meaning that mom cooked like crazy, our cleaning lady and her friend came to serve munchies and I hid in my room. But that day, I was dispatched to pick out Italian music for background and we had a typical early 60s sound system that went from the swimming pool to every bathroom in the place.  I asked Phil Herter for help - he ran the Music Center - and I knew from Italian like anyone knows from Montevanni.  He suggested a new set of LPs - unfortunately in French - La Boehme (think Rent the musical) but the star was Italian.  Anna Moffo.  I knew from nothing about opera and coloraturas and that big time world so I figured my mom - French major in college or not - would just go for it.

Anna Moffo was some pumpkins. She was gorgeous. She didn't look like those Opera type Brunhilda's - all 300 pounds of them - she could have been a model or in a Fellini movie - voted one of Italy's 10 most beautiful. Anyway, I stacked up the LPs on the sound system and was in charge and let 'er rip when the first ice cube hit the martini glass.  I didn't move for 3 hours. She instantly transformed my appreciation of things.

Anna was born in Wayne, New Jersey at a time when that was small town rural America. Her parents were "work-a-day" types...nothing special. Nicoli, her father, was a shoe maker. Her mom cooked and cleaned. Anna sung. Like an angel she sang.

Like an angel.