Where the white jasmine blends with the rose

Calendula and Osteospermum in the extensive gardens at Dolores Delargo Towers

MID-Summer already? It hardly feels like it has started yet...

What better way to celebrate the longest day of the year [it's all downhill from here, folks!] than with not one, but two magnificent voices - Dame Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne - on (what else but) The Flower Duet? Sigh.

Dame Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne - Flower Duet [Delibes Lakmé]

Under the dense canopy
Where the white jasmine
Blends with the rose
On the flowering bank
Laughing at the morning
Come, let us drift down together
Let us gently glide along
With the enchanting flow
Of the fleeing current
On the rippling surface
With a lazy hand
Let us reach the shore
Where the source sleeps
And the bird sings
Under the dense canopy
Under the white jasmine
Let us drift down together

A joy.

Miss Shore goes into battle

"I never wanted to set the world on fire. So I never had to burn any bridges behind me." - Dinah Shore

Today would have been the 94th birthday of Miss Dinah Shore, American variety show darling, and a fine singer to boot.

She is, however, somewhat drowned out while attempting to do battle with two of the great voices of the 20th century - Ella Fitzgerald and Dame Joan Sutherland!

Ella Fitzgerald, Dame Joan Sutherland and Dinah Shore - Lover Come Back to Me

A bizarre combination...

Speaking of bizarre combinations, Miss Shore was for several years during the 70s in a relationship with none other than Burt Reynolds, who was 20 years her junior. Her various relationships were the tabloids' dream.

She was in fact, despite her "squeaky-clean" TV persona, a bit of a girl!

Dinah Shore Fan Club

La Stupenda est morte

Dame Joan Sutherland is dead, and we at Dolores Delargo Towers are in mourning.

The leading soprano of the bel canto style for many decades, she worked with all the best orchestras and conductors (not least her husband Richard Bonynge), performed duets with major operatic superstars like Luciano Pavarotti and Marilyn Horne, and was famously directed in an on-screen version of Lucia de Lammamoor by none other than Franco Zefferelli.

We loved our Joan! It was only yesterday after all that I posted her supreme rendition of The Flower Duet. We love her Suor Angelica, her Tosca, her Die Fledermaus, her Norma and her Lucia di Lammermoor. We particularly treasure a vinyl album rarity of Miss Sutherland performing Noel Coward songs with the Master himself!

As down-to-earth as a sheep-shearer from the outback of Oz, Dame Joan was never known for her refinement in real life - she famously said "If I weren't reasonably placid, I don`t think I could cope with this sort of life. To be a diva, you've got to be absolutely like a horse."

But what a singer! She was lauded by her contemporaries - Luciano Pavarotti described her as having "the voice of the century", and Monserrat Caballe once said her voice was "like heaven", and her nickname was "La Stupenda". Joan's was the voice that opened the Sydney Opera House in 1973, and it was from that stage that she announced her retirement in 1990. That alone was a huge loss to music, but in her death there is now a gaping hole in the operatic firmament.

There will certainly never be another Dame Joan Sutherland. RIP...

Joan Sutherland - Vissi d'Arte (Puccini - Tosca)

Joan Sutherland - Casta diva (Bellini - Norma)

And here, Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne sing this sublime duet from Norma [again]:

Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne - Mira, o Norma (Bellini)

Dame Joan Sutherland obituary

Snake's heads, Ronaldo and Lakmé

It's been a gardening weekend here at Dolores Delargo Towers... Our friend Al kindly bought us a big bag of bulbs from Kew Gardens as a house-warming prezzie. I had already planted some red tulips and golden daffs with wallflowers in the little bed out the front a few weeks ago, but then the weather turned shit and so the back garden had to wait.

Yesterday I planted up two tubs - one with three enormous bulbs of the magnificent Lilium regale (above) that we purchased at the RHS Autumn Show last week. In the other I planted a layered mix of these beauties...



That's Tulip "Ronaldo" (named after my favourite sexy footballer, perhaps?) and Narcissus "Thalia" - which should be stunning together!

In the garden itself, we now have a drift of English bluebells, Anemone "du Caen", and Snake's Head Fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris), which should be joyful:



All this, and it is warm enough to sit out in shorts, sipping Rosé - not bad for mid-October!

To finish the glorious weekend off in a fitting manner, here's dear Dame Joan Sutherland with an appropriate aria - enjoy!

Joan Sutherland and Huguette Tourangeau - Flower Duet (from Delibes' Lakmé)