Who really cares about Batman or Wolverine? Since we’re all basically living in the tropics anymore anyway, here’s a comic book about Bidu Sayão. Thrill to the adventures of Brazil’s most famous operatic soprano!
You have to scroll down to the bottom of Bruce Duffie’s interview to see a more complete spread.
https://www.bruceduffie.com/sayao.html
Sayão was a great champion of the music of her compatriot, Heitor Villa-Lobos. Here she is, in Villa-Lobos’ “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5,” with the composer conducting.
Later, she came out of retirement to sing Villa-Lobos’ “Forests of the Amazon.” You can hear some of it at the end of these selections from some of her signature roles (Manon, Juliette, and Mimi). There’s even a Brazilian folk song tossed into the mix.
She’s heavenly in Debussy’s “La Damoiselle élue,” after Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “The Blessed Damozel,” recorded here with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
And “Si mes vers avaient des ailes” (“If my verses had wings,” text by Victor Hugo), by Venezuelan-born French composer Reynaldo Hahn.
Once she established herself at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Sayão had the good sense to make her home in the cooler clime of Lincolnville, Maine.
Her comic book dates from the 1940s. I’m hoping for a Jack Kirby-style cover, complete with Bidu punching out Hitler.