FRINGE 2019: Melanie Gall soars in Golden Age Hollywood Musical
Ingenue: Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland and the Golden Age Of Hollywood
Stage 7 (Chianti Yardbird Suite)
There is a Hollywood legend that the mighty Louis B. Meyer, head of MGM, once demanded his minion to fire “the fat one.” So the flunky jettisoned Deanna Durbin (Winnipeg’s Sweetheart), she of the crystalline legit soprano voice and one of the reigning queens of the lot. She was the wrong one. Meyer had a meltdown.
“Universal got Tiffany’s and we’re stuck with Woolworth’s!” he thundered. The one they kept was Judy Garland.
Durbin was immediately picked up by Universal Studios and scored a series of hits that were credited with saving the movie company. She was beloved by the masses, an inspiration for the Armed Forces and a favourite of many from Roosevelt to Mussolini. You can watch Durbin and Garland together in a scene on YouTube. It’s from a 1936 short called Every Sunday and both are terrific – Durbin with her filigree of operatic trills and Judy with her jazzy counterpoint. Durbin was being considered for The Wizard of Oz and, despite her many talents, the thought of her dancing down that yellow brick road with Ray Bolger, Jack Haley and Bert Lahr is the stuff of nightmares.
Garland and Durbin might have been competitors at MGM but stories of a Davis-Crawford-type feud were overblown. They actually liked each other.
St. Albert’s Melanie Gall is also a singer of note. Her cavalcade of shows for the Fringe over the years has included tributes to Vera Lynn, Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf. Her latest, Ingenue, examines Durbin’s life through her short-lived relationship with Garland. The former lived a fascinating life of her own, had a series of lovers, got pregnant twice and married three times. And then, burnt-out and weary of show business life, retired to France, seldom gave interviews and just disappeared.
With a voice just to the operatic side of her subject, Gall’s program does give the gifted soprano a chance to plumb the repertoire of both singers. We get a few of Durbin’s charming lighter songs (It’s Foolish But It’s Fun) and others that demonstrate just how versatile the star was. The best in the show, however, is Gall’s glorious rendition of Garland’s great hit, Over The Rainbow.
Gall’s soaring soprano has always anchored her shows, but her self-penned commentaries have sometimes been shaky. With the inclusion of last year’s superb We’ll Meet Again, she has strengthened her writing and delivery and has blossomed into an animated and charming narrator.
5 out of 5
