Marisha Data (died October 12, 1972) was a Polish-American comedian, singer, and composer. She was a successful performer for both English and Polish audiences. Her career encompassed numerous genres, ranging from serious opera to polka to vaudeville. Her comic performances were often in the character of Aggie Klepaczka.
She was an early performer on television, performing to pleasant reviews on WBKB in Chicago. [1] In 1948 she was performing Il Trovatore while touring with the Chicago Opera Artists Association, in the role of Azucena. Here her voice was reviewed as “big, warm, dramatic”. [2] The next year she was with the “Grand Opera Company of New York” performing in the opera Taras Bulba. The opera itself received a scathing review, but Data was again praised as someone who could “make a poor aria sound like a fairly good one”. [3]
Signed to Capitol, in 1950 she was releasing material in English on their regular pop series, and in Polish for the ethnic series. [4] [5] She then signed to Dana Records in 1952, and in quick secession a recording session took place in Chicago and several sides, performed In Polish, were released. [6] [7] Capitol Records released material by Data as part of their 1957 “Capitol of the World” campaign. [8]
In addition to her singing, she was a radio announcer, most commonly associated with WHFC, Chicago. One of her U.S. War Bond drives netted in excess of 1 million dollars. She was also a character actor, specializing in comic personalities. [9] In the character of "Aggie Klepaczka" she performed comic skits in both Polish and English, over a period that lasted from the early 1950s until the 1960s. [10] [11]
Marisha Data died on October 12, 1972. [9]
In 1974 she became, posthumously, the first woman to be inducted into the Polka Music Hall of Fame. [12]
Data remained popular among Polish and polka audiences long after her death. Richie Drongoski in 1992 included her name in his song with lyrical content similar to Rock and Roll Heaven but switched to Polka. [13] Similarly, Lenny Gomulka, in Polish via litania form, canonizes Data among polka luminaries in his song ‘’Where Were You Back Then Polka’’. [14]
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the Spanish play El trovador (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was García Gutiérrez's most successful play, one which Verdi scholar Julian Budden describes as "a high flown, sprawling melodrama flamboyantly defiant of the Aristotelian unities, packed with all manner of fantastic and bizarre incident."
Lester William Polsfuss, known as Les Paul, was an American jazz, country, and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier, and inventor. He was one of the pioneers of the solid-body electric guitar, and his prototype, called the Log, served as inspiration for the Gibson Les Paul. Paul taught himself how to play guitar, and while he is mainly known for jazz and popular music, he had an early career in country music. In the 1950s, he and his wife, singer and guitarist Mary Ford, recorded numerous records, selling millions of copies.
Minnie Julia Riperton Rudolph was an American soul singer and songwriter best known for her 1975 single "Lovin' You", her five-octave vocal range, and her use of the whistle register.
"Bewitched (Bothered and Bewildered)" is a show tune and popular song from the 1940 Rodgers and Hart musical Pal Joey. It is part of the Great American Songbook. The song was introduced by Vivienne Segal on December 25, 1940, in the Broadway production during Act I, Scene 6, and again in Act II, Scene 4, as a reprise. Segal also sang the song on both the 1950 hit record and in the 1952 Broadway revival. It was performed by Carol Bruce in the 1954 London production.
Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American spinto soprano who was the first African American soprano to receive international acclaim. From 1961 she began a long association with the Metropolitan Opera. She regularly appeared at the world's major opera houses, including the Royal Opera House, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and La Scala; at La Scala, she was also the first African American to sing a leading role. She was particularly renowned for her performances of the title role in Verdi's Aida.
Jo Elizabeth Stafford was an American traditional pop singer, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classical training to become an opera singer before following a career in popular music, and by 1955 had achieved more worldwide record sales than any other female artist. Her 1952 song "You Belong to Me" topped the charts in the United States and United Kingdom, becoming the second single to top the UK Singles Chart, and the first by a female artist to do so.
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June Hutton was an American vocalist, popular with big bands during the 1940s. She was the younger sister of Ina Ray Hutton.
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Maria Antonietta Stella was an Italian operatic soprano, and one of the most prominent Italian spinto sopranos of the 1950s and 1960s. She made her debut in Spoleto in 1950, as Leonora in Verdi's Il trovatore, a year later at Rome Opera, as Leonora in La forza del destino, in 1954 at La Scala in Milan, as Desdemona in Otello, in 1955 at the Royal Opera House in London as Aida, and in 1956 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, in the same role.
Herva Nelli was an Italian and American operatic soprano.
Polka is a music and dance style that originated in Bohemia in the 1830s and came to American society with immigrants from Europe. A fast style in 2
4 time, and often associated with the pre–World War II era, polka remains a dynamic "niche" music in America.
George William Weidler was an American saxophonist and songwriter who was born and died in Los Angeles, California. He was the second husband of singer-actress Doris Day and older brother of former child actress Virginia Weidler.
Dana Records was an American record label for Polish and polka music. Founded by Walter Dana in New York 1945, it was a significant player in the United States' recorded music market for a few years mid-century, its most successful year being 1952.
Yvonne Regina Ciannella was an American coloratura soprano in opera and concert. She began her career performing and recording with the Robert Shaw Chorale in the early 1950s. After graduate voice studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, she embarked on a career as an opera singer; working mainly in Germany at the Staatstheater Braunschweig, Theater Bonn, and Theater Dortmund during the 1960s. She also appeared as a guest artist with opera companies in Berlin, Cologne, Florida, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Vienna. For many years she was a member of the voice faculty of the College of Music at Florida State University.
Annamary Dickey, also known as Annamary Dickey Laue, was an American soprano and actress in operas, operettas, musicals, night clubs, and concerts who had an active performance career from the 1930s through the 1960s. She began her career as a regular performer with the Chautauqua Opera and the St. Louis Municipal Opera in the mid to late 1930s. In 1939 she won the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air which earned her a contract with the Metropolitan Opera (Met). She was a soprano in mainly secondary roles at the Met from 1939 to 1944; appearing in productions of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, Massenet's Manon, Delibes' Lakmé, Charpentier's Louise, Bizet's Carmen, Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, and Smetana's The Bartered Bride. Her most significant role at the Met was as Musetta in Puccini's La bohème. A strikingly beautiful woman with a passion for fashionable clothes, she gained the moniker the "Glamour Girl of the 'Met'" and headlined a fashion campaign for Saks Fifth Avenue in 1945.
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