When I was a little girl my Father took me to the ballet and the symphony. My great aunt Mimi took me to musicals, both theatrical and cinematic. I listened to music of every variety, from classical to country, to marching bands and folk. I saw Edward Vallella dance. And Mikhail Baryshnikov. I heard Beverly Sills, Leontyne Price, Marilyn Horne and Joan Sutherland sing. I saw Kirk Douglas in One Flew Over a Cukoo's Nest, the original Jesus Christ Superstar and I watched Kathy Bates mesmerize in Night Mother. I visited musuems of every stripe. I watched art films that my father brought home from his library jobs. I had free access to coffee table art books and we have prints on the wall of Miro and O'Keefe.
In school I sang in choruses and appeared in shows. I learned the art of singing Bach a cappella and singing four-part harmony for the Brahms Requiem. I studied movement and theatre and perfomed in classes, dirty little off-off-Broadway playhouses and acted out Three Sisters on the sloping lakeside of my family cottage.
I was fortunate - blessed, really - to have a family that adored the arts, all of the arts, and I was encouraged to enjoy them from childhood.
So is it any wonder that now, in later life, when I can no longer perform, when my life is more prescribed and I have not been to the theatre in years (who can afford it, really?) that I still thrill to the sound of a well-delivered line of
Shakespeare or Williams. When I hear the perfect notes of a classical opera through the headphones of my Disc man. When I look at a painting or sculpture that boggles the mind.
Or hear a poem, read a book, watch a violinist perform, see a ballerina soar.
There's nothing in the mundane world that can nourish a soul. We work and we play, but we need the majesty of art to sustain us.
When John Barrymore was old, dissipated and past his prime, there was a project underway to film some great moments of acting history. He was to be immortalized performing Hamlet's soliloquy. In his heyday, Barrymore's Hamlet was hailed as one of the greatest performances in theatrical history (John Corbin in the NY Times said on November 17, 1922: "In all likelihood we have a new and lasting Hamlet").
But when Barrymore was awaiting his turn on film, he was a jowly, puffy man, a shadow of his former startlingly handsome self. And then he took his turn to immortalize his Hamlet's speech. And by all accounts electrified the jaded Hollywood audience.
There are musical performances that transcend all others. Paul Robeson's "Old Man River". Kate Smith's "God Bless America". Judy Garland's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Dancers who embody the roles they perform. And artists who capture something that we didn't even know we were looking for until we saw it in their work.
All I know is that I live my life to enjoy the arts. Whether it is reading a good book, hearing a wonderful piece of jazz that transports me from the LIRR waiting room to a musical heaven, or watching an actor create life. There's nothing like it. Nothing, ever, in the world.
And that is why I love the arts.
