When I was 6, I made it very pronounced that my dream was to be an opera singer. I didn't exactly grow up in an operatic household, but the rich tone and dramatic delivery of classical voices tickled my fancy. Also my pre-pubescent range (think froggy bass up to castration level) seemed adept so I sang really obnoxiously, like all day. Needless to say, that dream never saw it's full potential. I suppose I became bored with my assumed limitations of an opera singer (fat, old). If only I known then the things which Klaus Nomi had done with opera in 1981... imagine where I would be now.
In many ways Nomi's representation of Purcell reminds me of a Lagerfeld/Burtonized rendition of my favorite operatic composition, "Dido's Lament" from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, sung here by the legendary Jessye Norman. The creeping, somber forward movement in a minor key is miserably gorgeous.
