On Friday, April 16, 2010 at 2:54:53 AM UTC-10, REG wrote:

I had not realized there were a few You Tubes of Pons at her fabled
(probably the right word in this case) appearance at Philharmonic Hall
in her mid 70s.
There is a bit of a television special here, but with extended
excerpts, here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRtIuK1GNss&feature=related

As well as the Filles de Cadiz which dav mentioned earlier.
This really was supposed to have been a spectacular concert - Sills
mentions in her first autobiography about how difficult it was for her
to get tickets, and Kostie, who conducted, has written about what it
took to make the concert work - he apparently spent a lot of energy
getting her to cut back what she wanted to sing, which had originally included The Bell Song.
In the event, the result (getting her to focus on what she could still
do) seems to really have paid off.
I was never a big Pons fan - I won't take the time now to go through
the list of flaws, even from an early point in her career (I think
that by the mid 30s, whatever the virtues were, were increasingly
outweighed by the limitations) - but I am more than happily surprised
by what was left forty years later. There's no real wobble, the
intonation is almost always true (not so much the case in the prior
four decades!!), the voice production is clear, and without any hint
of spreading, and most importantly, she really did have the style.
In the excerpt narrated by Lorne Greene, you will hear a lengthy
section of Marie's aria from Fille, and the style is so pure and so
really French, that it puts both Damrau and, even more, Dessay, to
shame. Every word is clear, all the notes are cleanly articulated and
on the breath, there are no false slides into notes, and the vocal
line isn't distended at any point - the singing is like a violinist
playing, which is just what French style actually is (and which is why
the Hamlet, among other reasons, didn't work for me).
Quite impressive.

In 1955, she appeared on the tv program WHAT'S MY LINE? (see the following Youtube upload):

WHATS MY LINE 06 03 1955 with LILY PONS

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