She sang for New York City Opera, Canadian Opera Company, the Cosmopolitan Opera, and the New York World’s Fair. She sang on Broadway and at Carnegie Hall, was a guest on the Ed Sullivan Show, and composed, wrote, and performed her own material for Columbia Records.
In Russell’s first major successful season she performed in 37 cities in the United States and Canada before an estimated 100,000 listeners, and her first album stayed on the charts for 48 weeks. By the end of her career she was almost a household word among classical music afficianados, and was playing to sold-out houses all over the globe.
Any good singer would be proud of such affiliations and such a career—but Anna Russell wasn’t a good singer.
Russell was born in England in 1911 and received an excellent musical education at the Royal Academy of Music, studying hard, with the aim of being an opera singer. She had a good work ethic, a remarkably sharp mind, an extensive knowledge of the repertoire, natural musicality, incredible comic timing, and a voice like a vegetable grater, and rallied all of them to create her own brand of “classical music stand-up comedy” parodying the pretensions of the culture surrounding the music she loved but didn’t have the voice to sing.
I was introduced to this remarkable performer at a young age when my mother took me down to the University of Washington’s Music School Listening Library and told me I needed to listen to her famous routine, How to Write a Gilbert and Sullivan Opera. I choked laughing and promptly became a fan, although by that time she was nearing retirement and was available to me only through her extensive recording legacy.
Russell’s performing heyday was in the ‘50s and ‘60s, but Generation X doesn’t need to miss out. Just go to your local music listening library. Any one of her routines is a sure-fire pick-me-up. If you are starting to take yourself too seriously, I would recommend “Ah Lover!” from the song cycle Songs for Loud Singers with No Brains. If that never-ending German art song you are working on is beginning to drive you to thoughts of a nice secretarial job somewhere, listen to “Shlumph,” Russell’s parody of a German art song—and if you just can’t take any more Massenet that day, her corresponding parody of a French art song, “Je n’ai pas la plume de ma tante” is a winner.
Comedians are undervalued, and always will be. If something is funny, we tend to underestimate its artistry and how much work went into it. Russell sometimes went for the cheap laughs and her humor was frequently of the “sour grapes” variety, but her performances were witty and sparkling, and her love of the art form shines through. I have always been deeply impressed by her talent and originality, her courage, her humor about herself, and above all, her incredible accomplishment. Most gifted singers sing roles portraying other people and sing music written by other people. Anna Russell, given every gift except the one she wanted, wrote her own personality in large letters across the stages of the world and created her own role: herself.
So, what have you been doing lately?
