I happened to catch
a new morning talk show at the end of last week with a new early morning host
by the name of Tamron Hall. First off, I noticed she is chic to the bone and when
she mentioned her upcoming birthday (16
th) I kept thinking that it
was also someone else’s birthday that very day (13
th) who was once very
famous. Last Friday the 13
th happened to be the
actual birthday-
albeit 97 years ago- of a beautiful Peruvian-born operatic singer by the stage
name of Yma Sumac. She passed away on November first almost 11 years ago but
she was so sensational in talent, appearance and showmanship that she should be
listed among the most outstanding professional sopranos in the world’s
entertainment history. Unfortunately, if I mentioned her name to most people
now, they wouldn’t know who I’m talking about- even the most musically inclined
or otherwise. She is known among select members of the Rock establishment
because of a cult following sparked during the New Wave/Punk era in the 80s. I
was among those who assumed that she had died during a time in her life when
circumstances got in the way of her career of more than 30 years by then. But I
was told about Yma by my parents who spoke of her
other-worldly voice way before then. I have never seen or heard a
live performance of her, personally.
She was most
popular in the 1950s- before my time, actually. A concert she gave at the
Hollywood Bowl that first year was the breakout performance which finally
sparked sudden worldwide fame becoming internationally famous overnight. Only
weeks later her first Capitol recording
Voice
of the Xtabay was released and took the recording industry by storm with a
million copies sold before the year was over. (Moreover, it has never stopped
selling!) This woman wowed audiences with her double-voiced trills and amazing vocal
range, South American (regional) folk music and her stunningly flamboyant and
authentic outfits which were often studded with gold and silver jewelry, many
of which were copied from Incan Royal costumes. In fact, she claimed to be a
descendant of the Incan emperor Atahualpa and was backed by her country on this
issue. Her birth name was Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo and
the internet sources (such as Wikipedia) will give her birth date as September
10
th but those sources are in error. Birthdates aside, that isn’t
the only misinformation about her on the internet, even by her own admission or
from her camp but one thing is for certain, she was called
The Nightingale of the Andes and also as a
Peruvian Songbird and she was very definitely that and more.
Yma’s
recordings, which number impressively, are testament to her four-octave range
and the exotic language she sang from originally. Her music can still be purchased
from an official web site which was set up by her personal assistant Damon
Devine. I happen to be a proud owner of one of her LPs which covers songs from
two of her early recordings,
The Voice of
the Xtabay and
Inca Taqui- Chants of the Incans. The
sounds are so exotic and enigmatic that much of it is hypnotic and makes one
feel they are being enchanted by the singer! You won’t understand very much with
the language barrier but I can explain that many of the songs imitate the
sounds of the wildlife and nature coming from the forests of the upper Amazon
and the Andean Mountains. Xtabay actually refers to a
young Incan virgin who fell in love with an Aztec prince and the alliance was
forbidden because the maiden was a simple peasant. A New York teenager was quoted as saying,
“When I listen to her I feel like I’m dreaming, like I’m in another world.”
Other qualified commentary came from popular opera singers and authoritative
music industry professionals and tycoons. Eventually, she became close friends
with Maria Callas.
Before she made
her splash in Hollywood, her origins were that
of singing in religious pageants and services in her native Ichocan village and
after becoming well-known for her talent regionally, word got around until it
reached the Peruvian capital, Lima.
She was placed in catholic school by 1935 after government officials scouted to
find her. Among those delegates, Moises Vivanco, a young composer and authority
on Incan music, became quite interested in her and married her (in 1942) becoming
in the process her manager, conductor and arranger and in the beginning was an
essential element in the process of developing her vocal talent. A scholarship
to attend the University
of Lima followed in 1941,
after she sang for an audience of 25,000, which gave her the opportunity to
study psychology alongside music study! Both Walt Disney and Douglas Fairbanks
Jr.offered Yma promotion in the U.S when they traveled through South America.
She traveled with
Vivanco throughout South America and
eventually the world. Inexplicably, the U.S. was much more resistant to her
talent in the beginning though both she and Vivanco worked very hard trying to
get noticed, not just with the public but also with booking agents who viewed
her, more or less, as a novelty act. An appearance on television shows did not
produce much interest either but singing at the Hollywood Bowl with Arthur
Fiedler’s orchestra got her the type of attention that went around the world
and back. After that she began a series of concert tours that moved through
several continents and to hundreds of thousands of people per concert. One
reporter, Glenn Gunn of the Washington Times-Herald reported, “There is no
voice like it in the world of music today…a greater range than any female voice
of concert or opera. It soars into the acoustic stratosphere or
plumbs sub-contralto depths with equal ease. Such a voice happens only once in
a generation.”
What eventually
became worldwide appeal as a whole started with an appearance at Carnegie Hall
in 1948 and then the Blue Angel Supper Club in 1949. Capitol Records saw the
potential audience and signed her to a record deal. They added Cuban musicians
to her trio, ran the whole package off to Hollywood
and shortly thereafter they landed right back where the breakthrough started. She
made many recordings over the years and had quite a long career which included
an appearance in a film with Edith Piaf, Cuban dates, stints at the Royal
Albert Hall in London and on the Frank Sinatra
Show in the U.S.
As a matter of fact, after that she became the darling of celebrity variety
T.V. shows in the States.
During the
fifties she returned often to her native Peru and was welcomed and very much
celebrated. By the time that decade came to a close, however, I’m sure the pace
and schedule began to wear a little on her and when her star appeared on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 she had gotten a divorce from Vivanco (after
many trials with him and his liaisons) and prepared to tour Russia with a child
under her arm and a trio which still included her ex-husband! She performed in
40 cities within Russia
with the Bolshoi Symphony and the Tchaikovsky Opera House as a highlight in the
tour. She took Russia
by storm and received adulation above and beyond expectations, of course. By
numbers these tours were an enormous success with 186
concerts for nearly 60 million people which included an additional 130 concerts
in Romania, Poland, and Germany
.The fact that she also sang in Russian may have been a factor and she
toured for more than a year there which eventually included Czechoslovakia.
There she gave a total of ten consecutive performances to an audience of
300,000.
In 1962 Yma
returned to Los Angeles
in triumph but with her Capitol Records deal expired. The U.S. had cooled
a bit to her talent but as she remained in top form it didn’t stop her
international success. In 1963 she traveled to Tokyo and had a 10 week run at the Mikado
Room. In November of that same year she traveled to Germany to perform again and
connected with another celebrity fan in Marlene Dietrich! I must imagine that
Marlene was in awe of her voice and the exotic songs which were Vivanco’s work
on musical composition and the written lyrics which were solidly based on Incan
legends.
A couple of years
later she returned to the Hollywood Bowl for only the second time, fifteen
years later for a South American Fiesta Gala. It inspired her to make a return
to Peru
to give a few concerts and visit her family with a disappointing reception from
her fellow Peruvians. She had become an American citizen many years previous
and this act offended them enough to accuse her of trying to change Peruvian
music and the newspapers canned her modified style as inauthentic. Her divorce
from Vivanco may have also been a factor as well although she was perfectly
justified for doing so. In 1966 she was welcomed to Brazil for another festival
and was well received and well attended by singers, musicians and composers the
world over including Amalia Rodriguez, Les Baxter, Maurice Chevalier and, of
course, the general public.
Yma completely
ended all association with Vivanco in 1968 after they did a last stint at the
Mikado Room with a series of successful performances and she received the
Golden Disk of Hollywood Award for Best Latin American singer in America. With
the complete break-up, he moved to Spain
and she headed for Australia
and performed at Chequers in Sydney. Even though she
had some great moments in the seventies it was a cooling off period for her
most likely because of the music scene at that time. One such appearance was
again at the Hollywood Bowl for a 20th anniversary appearance which
included people like Frank Sinatra, Tony Martin, Ricardo Montalban and Dionne
Warwick. This was a turning point for her which helped her feel accepted and
comfortable in the music world. It added longevity to her career which has kept
her in the public eye for many years past her lifespan.
An attempt in
reigniting her career came in 1971 with a new album after a 12 year recording
lapse. Titled, Miracles it was
released by London Records and funded by three fans. The presence of Les Baxter
as the producer should have been a help but the packaging of it ignited Yma’s
anger instead. She didn’t agree with any of the credits Les Baxter received or
the way it was packaged. This also kindled a big fat lawsuit. The album was
withdrawn at some point but not before Yma’s cult following managed to snag
copies. It is now a favorite with vinyl record collectors. This set the tone for
the 70s when her mother took ill, prompting Yma to visit her several times,
even with the negative receptions she was getting in her native land. When her
mother, Emilia, passed away in 1974 it was over and she was not to return for
32 years!
After giving two
concerts in New York City in 1975, at the Town Hall and at Chateau Madrid she
faded out of the public eye out of a dire need for solitude and to deal with a
delinquent son, a dying fellow trio artist by the name of Cholita and other
weighty matters but did not return to Peru after her mother’s passing.
Throughout the 80s she did small stints within U.S. borders, gave out interviews
for quite a few publications here and abroad and was quietly building up a
following based on her recordings and some few attempts by others at imitation.
The cult following happened after a 1987 appearance on The David Letterman Show
and a play date at New York’s
Ballroom. An interesting documentary appeared in 1992 on German T.V. which
brought some interest in her but perhaps the wrong kind for the times.
Even though she
may be more misunderstood for her sound in the present day, Yma continued to
receive interest from record buyers in 1996 when her entire Capitol Records
catalog was transferred to CDs and she did a personal signing at Tower Records
on Sunset Strip with a second largest crowd in the store’s history assembled
for the event. This spurred some concerts (at age 74!) in California including a House of Blues
engagement! In 1997 she performed her last concert at the Montréal Jazz
Festival after a signing at the Virgin Megastore. She also received the
Lifetime Achievement Award in Los
Angeles that year at the Wilshire Ebell.
Her ex-husband,
Vivanco passed away in 1998 without much publicity or attention but more
telling is that in 2006, two years before she left this world, Yma was
reordained into Peruvian hearts with a letter sent to the government by a young
fan who asked the authorities to finally recognize her as a national treasure
as they should have much earlier. They all agreed and sent for her to return to
receive many awards among which the Orden del Sol, only given to the most
prominent, was granted. During that time she also visited Machu Picchu wanting to take in the awesome
atmosphere in peace. Instead it became another photo extravaganza with much
publicity. Her parting words before she went back home to Los Angeles as the American she had become
were simply, “I miss my home.”
She passed
quietly on Halloween in 2008 at her home in Silverlake, east Hollywood digs,
after battling stage 4 colon cancer for eight months. I never saw any
announcements although it has been reported on the internet that it was made
known worldwide. My father, who was also in his 80s when she passed, brought me
a newspaper clipping because I’d been her fan since I was in my young twenties.
He said he remembered her and gave me the clipping. She had turned eighty-six
only a few months before.
I will close this
with a recommendation of one of the most touching songs of her repertoire
titled, Ripui, which means farewell.
The closing lines ring out, “When I go, my words will be your tears.”
The Castle Lady
