My life upon the wicked stage 

and all the adventures thereon and 

therefrom, etc. etc. etc.

Worry not, 

dollies are in there! 

 Here follows the saga. 

  Born in Kentucky, I grew up in the Panama Canal Zone when it was still occupied and operated by the US. I started fulfilling my longtime desire to do theatre when I returned to the Canal Zone after college to work for the Panama Canal Company Graphic Branch (have a BA in Fine Art), by starting voice lessons and doing some theatrical things with a little theatre group there. Five years after I graduated from college with a BFA, I decided to try my luck at singing/acting for a living (hah!) by going to the University of Washington in Seattle as a voice major in grad school. 

  

  After my first year at UW School of Music, I started singing first in the auxiliary (read: unpaid) chorus and then a couple of years later, the professional (read: paid) chorus of Seattle Opera. Finally, after I made my solo opera debut (more of which later) I did the Valkyrie Sigrune (one of 9—the star Brunnhilde being our most famous "sister") in the now-famous Seattle Opera Wagner "Ring Cycle"—complete with shield, 8' spear and winged helmet. 

  Since that time, I have spoken to Luciano Pavarotti who was wearing Dracula teeth at the time--another whole story. I have walked in front of Placido Domingo and said "Excuse me!" as he smiled at me—be still, my heart. I have stood backstage—waiting to go on—beside José Carreras who was observing the action. Yep, all three of the Three Tenors! 

   At the Opera de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, I have been assigned the dressing room formerly occupied by Maria Callas, the famous soprano whose lover, Ari Onassis, was appropriated later by Jackie Kennedy. 

  But the "coup d'étage operatique" with which I am most happy? I made my operatic debut (in the Seattle Opera production in 1972 of "Lucia di Lammermoor" by Gaetano Donizetti) as Alisa, the companion to the other woman in the show, who was playing "Lucia" (the star, natch)—Beverly Sills—singing about six measures of duet with her at the end of her first aria. 

  I got to do two more shows with her along the way—La traviata, playing Annina, her maid, tucking her into bed in the last scene of the show—just before she got up to  sing her last high note of joy before dying and collapsing in a graceful heap on the floor while her anguished Alfredo runs to her and the rest of us stand aghast at the horror as the final curtain comes down—also in Seattle. The last time I worked with Ms. Sills was as the slave girl Myrtale in a San Francisco Opera production of "Thaïs"(Massenet, composer), Ms. Sills playing the lead rôle—of course—as Thaïs, a courtesan who becomes a nun in the last act. She signed my program "Best wishes to Ms. Navel from Mrs. Navel"—referencing our mutual "bellydancer-esque" costuming in the big revelry scene in, if I remember correctly, the second act.

   Besides Valkyries and Norns in the Wagner Ring, among other supporting and feature roles, up and down the West Coast from Vancouver to San Diego and inland as far as Houston, I've sung Prince (yes Prince) Orlofsky complete with mustache in "Die Fledermaus", Nicklaus (another guy! I'm a mezzo—we do that) in "The Tales of Hoffmann", and Mrs. Ghandi (yes, the Mahatma's wife) in "Satyagraha", the opera by Phillip Glass (the language of which is Sanskrit), along with the standard German, French, English and of course Italian fare. 

   My most exciting performance? I sang the role of Lady Macbeth in Giuseppe Verdi's version of Shakespeare's wonderful play in Mexico (see "dressing room" above) in the Ópera de Bellas Artes, their incredible 1930's opera house with a Tiffany glass fire curtain depicting all the different landscapes of Mexico from desert to mountain, day to night which is absolutely breath-taking. 

   In addition to the languages mentioned already, I've sung in Spanish, as well as eight more—including Sanskrit (in the opera about Gandhi) which, like Russian (plus Czech and Hungarian), I learned strictly by ear.  French is probably the language I like best to sing in because it fits my mouth and throat really well. I've sung the most in German, because I've done 27 complete Ring cycles in addition to other performances in German opera. I've sung many operas translated to English because I did a lot of second cast performances in Seattle which were always done in English translation during my years there. Plus some operas actually have been written in English in the first place! 

  Now that I have gone into the broad expanse of my musical life, I will explain how dolls are tied into it all. As I mentioned, I did all those Wagner Rings, about 14 in German and 13 in English, plus performances of the individual Ring operas: Die Walküre (Seattle Opera, San Francisco Opera and Portland Opera [OR]) and Götterdämmerung (San Diego). In case not, here is the connection. 

   

   As a singer, I have also done concerts on stage for which I had to make my dresses. I'm tall and long-waisted and store-bought dresses, well, aren't! Therefore, I made the gowns myself. Therefore, I have a bunch of concert outfits, as well as good-sized leftover scraps and pieces, put away in boxes doing nothing useful. So I decided to miniaturize them, including my original valkyrie outfit—when they retired the production, Seattle Opera costume department gave me my complete costume, including spear and shield! That way, I can have them around to display or play with, and if I have enough material left over (I will!) I can make copies for other people to use for their gals. At least, that's my plan. 

  However, beautiful and glamorous as they are, my original plan to use Gene Marshall (doll) and her friends as models of the outfits, I found—after accumulating a number of them which I am afraid to total—when I actually started to make the gown copies, these gorgeous creatures are really too small for my less than magnificent sewing skills to make exact copies feasible. Lots of detail must be left out. So I am reluctantly winnowing my collection to a "few" who are impossible to part with. Sigh. 

  But to the rescue has come—tah dah!—the glamorous, incredible Tonner Miss Goth 2012 American Model!!! She's perfect. She's quite dramatic of visage, and is almost the size, lacking about 3 or 4 inches of height but much closer than Ms. Marshall, of the Theatre de la Mode figures. So there's lots more room for the needed detail. 

  For the Valkyries? I still plan to use Gene because "Spirit of Truth"! Definitely it should be worn by the star Valkyrie, Brünnhilde! Who but Gene to play the leading lady! The others? They can be my something something Pacific girls as they all look alike except for their hair colors and styles. Besides, they can bend easily to ride horses without unsightly joints (sorry, jointed ladies, but that's life as a plastic girl!)

  I have five (only five mounted valkyries) wonderful American Girl horses of various ("different"?) colors and poses. They are a bit large but the Walküren would ride larger than life ponies, no? For Gene, the Brünnhilde, a white AG horse to play her faithful stallion, Grane ( Grah-neh) whom she rides into the end-of-the-world funeral pyre of her great love Siegfried. It's complicated. Look it up : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Ring_des_Nibelungen. 

  So now all I have to do is get rid of the extra Genes and friends, along with their vast wardrobes. They are a bit too sophisticated to play the other Valks but since Gene has that outfit "Spirit of Truth," she is halfway there already! I just have to make her a long green skirt to go under it all to make it look like the other costumes only fancier.

  I'll let all of you see the results…when there are some!

  Right now, my main problem is too many 16" girls cluttering up the place. Did I mention we have downsized, moving some time ago to about half the square footage we had when I started this project? We wanted to stop spending our time as servants to a house and start letting our home serve us for a change. Priorities evolve as time marches on, doncha know!

  So here is where all my doll friends come in. I am letting go of all the girls except the one who is going to wear Spirit of Truth etc. I may keep a couple more of her and make several more valkyrie outfits in case anyone else wanted one. Also, it is possible that Seattle Opera might want one for their office or something weird like that. 

  However, that means I will be selling off such things as the bald Gene with a set of mix and match clothes and accessories plus a blonde wig thrown in that we received at the last IT convention. The Blue Avenue Gene came to me at my table and I have never taken her or the bald Gene out of their boxes. I have a Zita and a Marsha Hunt, ditto. There is a Gene with a poodle cut with white satin gown and cape lined in red from the Dallas convention who has not been released from captivity either. There are other things too such as the alley set up (never even taken it out of the box!) that has been made such marvelous use of by Dennis Norris. For instance, see the back of the first Gene magazine (the only physically printed issue) from 2010. The other issues (2 or 3??) were pdfs online. I don't know if they are still up on the HYLAG site or not, now that it's been Yahooed!

  What I have planned is that anyone who wants something from the list should make me an offer. I am going to take the best one, natch, but if you're the only one…well, you win by default. Give it a try. How can it hurt? If I accept your offer because it's the best—or the only—one, you win. If I don't? What? No harm, no foul, right?

  Right now, I'm trying to make space for my husband to take photos of all this stuff.  I need a space for him to use to stage the photos, i.e., I have to clear off a surface in the doll room. Easier said than done, at the moment, space being the commodity currently the most rare here abouts. When that space is found and I have all the items sorted and photoed, well then! There will be an organized non-google website with pictures and links to paypal and other such stuff. But until that sunny day, I will keep running on here on Blogger.

  Stay tuned!