One of Deb's brothers has posted a photo of her on her memorial page, wearing a magnificent, flowered hat and a vintage dress with a bustle. She smiles Gioconda-like, eyes bright.I offer the comment in the list below Patrick's post that "Deb always said, she'd missed her era."
And I suppose she had. Her lyric soprano voice was always more, it seemed, than auditioners cared to cast. She was ever enthusiastically welcomed as one of the chorus but never as the ingenue, as the matron but never the lead.
The reality was a constant frustration to her, and it should have been. Though Debra's voice bore gravitas in every note she sang.
I recall one occasion, when she sang a fundraiser for a local church in Posey County, Indiana, where a friend of ours, who was a co-worker with us at the B. Dalton in Evansville, was a member. Deb presented a program of classical and sacred music, including arias of roles in which she longed to be cast - Tosca, Carmen - then a couple of Schubert Lieder, and finally American spirituals making it sound as if she was channeling Marian Anderson.
The audience had come, apparently expecting simple fare or an under-developed vocalist. They got neither. They were blown away. She sang two encores of L'amour est un oiseau rebelle from Carmen before they would let her step down.
Her friends and co-workers in choirs and choruses will undoubtedly bear witness to the reward of being in a more intimate audience with Debra. She loved best the joy of ensemble - singing together, performing to a responsive audience. It was the interaction she enjoyed. Not to say that she did not enjoy solo work, but that her best work was done when she could interact with the audience, sing to someone on the front row, flirt with another on the aisle.
The diva presence Debra could project when she either was first introduced to someone, or else when she considered or spoke of her craft, belied the intimacy with which she performed. Maybe casting agents and directors imagined that the intimacy would work against her in a grand setting.
Or maybe Deb really was out of her era.
Whatever the reason she found herself more often in the chorus or the choir, those of us who were able to work alongside her, or to delight in being her audience for those more intimate performances, will confess there will come no other personality like her soon.
