lsanderson | Anna Russell, dead at 94

Anna Russell, Deft Parodist of Operatic Culture, Dies at 94
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN

Anna Russell, the prima donna of operatic parody who claimed to have begun her career as “leading soprano of the Ellis Island Opera Company,” who said she learned to play the French horn from an article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and who gave indelibly grating performances of a song she identified as Blotz’s “Schlumpf” to demonstrate what it is like to sing with “no voice but great art,” died on Wednesday in Bateman’s Bay, New South Wales, Australia. She was 94. More

Anna, born in London, country in dispute, who probably taught more people more about Wagner's Ring than they ever imagined, brought the house down in opera when, as a result, her career carroomed out of control into interpreting Wagner for the only slight tone deaf, and a life of DIY Gilbert and Sullivan. I remember listening to her record in the wilds o' Manhattan and howling my head off. And, she never made any of it up.