{"id":8026,"date":"2011-02-16T11:26:01","date_gmt":"2011-02-16T16:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8026"},"modified":"2011-03-08T13:26:04","modified_gmt":"2011-03-08T18:26:04","slug":"midweek-music-break-madeline-kahn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/midweek-music-break-madeline-kahn\/","title":{"rendered":"Midweek Music Break: Madeline Kahn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Not only was the late <a title=\"Wikipedia, on Madeline Kahn\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Madeline_Kahn\" target=\"_blank\">Madeline Kahn<\/a> almost unnervingly funny; she could seriously unhinge me with her voice. <a title=\"Opera News: 'Sweet Mystery'\" href=\"http:\/\/www.operanews.com\/Opera_News_Magazine\/2010\/7\/Features\/Sweet_Mystery.html\" target=\"_blank\">Says<\/a> a writer for the Metropolitan Opera Guild&#8217;s <em>Opera News<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>That note! Madeline Kahn&#8217;s sustained &#8220;Ah!&#8221; on A-flat, the first volley in Victor Herbert&#8217;s &#8220;Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life&#8221; and the climax of Mel Brooks&#8217;s <em>Young Frankenstein<\/em> &#8212; has any singer ever made more impact with less?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the moment he refers to:<\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"499\" height=\"311\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/NWrCf7rAytc?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>In that one <em>Opera News<\/em> article, by the way, I found more information about her singing than anyplace else I&#8217;ve seen. It includes the tidbit that Kahn did in fact briefly consider an opera career before settling on theater and films. Not really surprising &#8212; either the opera possibility, or her ultimate choice.<\/p>\n<p>In the <em>Sesame Street<\/em> clip below, she again puts both extravagant talents to work, with Grover, in &#8220;Sing After Me&#8221;:<\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"500\" height=\"405\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/hsCOTsE4atQ?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not only was the late Madeline Kahn almost unnervingly funny; she could seriously unhinge me with her voice. Says a writer for the Metropolitan Opera Guild&#8217;s Opera News: That note! Madeline Kahn&#8217;s sustained &#8220;Ah!&#8221; on A-flat, the first volley in Victor Herbert&#8217;s &#8220;Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life&#8221; and the climax of Mel Brooks&#8217;s Young Frankenstein [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2252,53,74,196,713],"tags":[2218],"class_list":{"0":"post-8026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-midweek-music-break","7":"category-movies-media","8":"category-music","9":"category-television","10":"category-humor-writing_cat","11":"tag-madeline-kahn","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-25s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8027,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8026\/revisions\/8027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}