The Voice of the Dark Mother

It's in the music, dolls.

In the modern age, mysticism is frowned upon if not outright pathologized, but one place where we can access the depths of the soul and even achieve an ecstatic state is in the arts. After Descartes, the Age of Enlightenment, and the ascent of a scientific class no less an Inquisition than the actual court of the church (also, science no less a metaphorical language for the processes of creation than talk of chakras and faeries), the artists more and more took on the role of shaman, healer, priestess.

In that vein, and given that it’s Pride weekend, I thought we’d lighten it up a little around here and share some of the musical artists who access that Dark Mother mojo, the force that makes us forget ourselves, dig into our heartbreak, surrender to sensuality, and leave the concert hall or theater transformed.

Here are some of my favorite gay icons who sing, as the Turks say, with a burnt heart, which is none other than the heart of the Black Madonna.

First up, Audra McDonald as Rose in the current revival of Gypsy. I saw her months ago in the role, and I staggered out of the theater. Her portrayal of the ultimate stage mother, a woman whose dreams never worked out but who is damned-and-determined to make something of her daughters, who consequently leave her behind for her mania and cruelty, is one of the top theatrical experiences in a lifetime of fine theater. Here she is doing an abbreviated version of the final number at this year’s Tony Awards (and obviously, she was robbed).

Next up is the incomparable Edith Piaf, whose song La Foule is one of my top favorites in her repertoire. The voice is indelible; the story in the lyrics is heartbreaking; her face, transfixed by the love found and too quickly stolen, is mesmerizing.

Perhaps the blackest of all burnt hearts is that of Chavela Vargas. I first came across her in the film Frida and fell hard for that voice. A wonderful documentary about this bad-ass, Latina lesbian came out in 2017, and I highly recommend it. One of the interviews that got away when I worked at the Washington Blade was with Vargas who had to cancel at the last minute; I still curse fate for that one.

How to choose a clip of the great soprano Jessye Norman. Wagner? Berlioz? Here, I go for her rendition of Dido’s lament by Henry Purcell. Abandoned by the Trojan Aeneas, Dido sings this aria before her suicide. I always thought if the Great Mother took up opera, she did it in the guise of Norman whose heartrending and titanic instrument was unparalleled. (And who doesn’t love this glam and gaudy production?)

Of course, as far as opera goes, it’s hard to imagine more of a gay icon than the great Maria Callas. Here she is in what was called “the monster concert,” because she did an entire first act of difficult numbers, followed by all of act two of Tosca. Here, she’s Norma, the druid priestess – a woman torn between her outward duty to her people, her priestess gravitas, and her inner torment at loving the colonizer, a Roman general who has been very distant of late. (Because he’s a man whore.) The voice, by this time, was showing signs of wear, but the magic is incandescent all the same.

And finally, we have Judy Garland, who, arguably, was the glittered straw that broke the drag queens’ backs and touched off the Stonewall Riots in June of 1969. (Some people don’t like calling them “riots,” preferring “uprising,” but I enjoy the unruly quality of the original word, one used by the straights who got very nervous when all those sissies threw bricks and locked cops in a bar.) She died on June 22nd, and the queens weren’t having any of law enforcement’s nonsense. My gay uncle Stephen introduced me to Judy’s oeuvre when I was in my teens, having only ever known her for The Wizard of Oz, and I was hooked. Our Piaf, Garland is untouchable for sheer vocal expression, star power, and the ability to tell a story. Plus, she loved her gays. Below is one of the best in an impressive catalog, “The Man that Got Away,” from A Star is Born. Thanks, Judy.