{"id":1329,"date":"2024-02-16T20:29:46","date_gmt":"2024-02-16T20:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ventil.rs\/blog\/entertainment\/wilhelmenia-wiggins-fernandez-soprano-who-starred-in-diva-dies-at-75\/"},"modified":"2024-02-16T20:29:46","modified_gmt":"2024-02-16T20:29:46","slug":"wilhelmenia-wiggins-fernandez-soprano-who-starred-in-diva-dies-at-75","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ventil.rs\/blog\/entertainment\/wilhelmenia-wiggins-fernandez-soprano-who-starred-in-diva-dies-at-75\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, soprano who starred in \u2018Diva,\u2019 dies at 75"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"teaser-content\">\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, an American soprano who had recently established herself as an opera singer in real life when she was cast by a French director to play one on-screen in the 1981 movie \u201cDiva,\u201d a cult film that lodged her in the memory of generations of art house audiences, died Feb. 2 at her home in Lexington, Ky. She was 75.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">The cause was cancer, said her daughter, Sheena Fernandez.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">Ms. Fernandez made her vocal debut at age 7 when, by her account, her grandmother brought her before the congregation of their Baptist church in Philadelphia and told her to \u201csing for the people.\u201d She went on to study at the Juilliard School in New York before entering the professional opera world in the late 1970s as one of its relatively few Black singers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">African American stars such as Leontyne Price, Shirley Verrett and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/obituaries\/2023\/05\/08\/grace-bumbry-opera-singer-dead\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Grace Bumbry<\/a> had achieved major international careers before Ms. Fernandez embarked on hers. But obstacles and indignities remained.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">When she presented herself for auditions, Ms. Fernandez once <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/archive\/lifestyle\/style\/1982\/07\/25\/the-diva-of-south-philly\/cb55e2f6-e4a6-4c9e-87ba-b04ec2bcc1a2\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told The Washington Post<\/a>, she detected what she described as \u201cthe little falling of the face,\u201d which to her signaled that \u201cwe would like you to do the role, but you\u2019re Black.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">\u201cI wished I could sing behind a screen and just be judged on my voice,\u201d Ms. Fernandez said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">She was singing in churches in Philadelphia in the late 1970s when a friend encouraged her to try out for a Houston Grand Opera touring production of \u201cPorgy and Bess,\u201d the Gershwin opera set in the fictional Black community of Catfish Row in Charleston, S.C. Hired to sing in the chorus, she quickly was promoted to play Bess.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">While touring with the production in Europe, she won a contract with the Paris Opera, where she attracted the notice of film director Jean-Jacques Beineix. Beineix was at work on his debut feature, a thriller whose plot centered on an American opera star. He decided that Ms. Fernandez was the person to play her.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">At first Ms. Fernandez was unsure. \u201cI don\u2019t quite believe in filmed performance; it seems to me it should be real flesh and blood,\u201d she later told the Miami Herald.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">But she ultimately agreed, and her initial reluctance perhaps contributed to the verisimilitude of her performance as Cynthia Hawkins, the fictional title character of \u201cDiva,\u201d who bedazzles Paris and bewitches a young French postal messenger named Jules (Frederic Andrei).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">Cynthia\u2019s defining trait is that she refuses to consent to recordings. Only in the presence of an audience, amid the emotional exchange between performer and listener, does she believe her artistry can emerge. Jules, obsessed, sneaks a tape recorder into one of her concerts, bootlegs a recording of her singing \u201cEbben? Ne andr\u00f2 lontana,\u201d the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2hsmoo97CVA&amp;list=RD2hsmoo97CVA&amp;start_radio=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">signature soprano aria<\/a> from Alfredo Catalani\u2019s opera \u201cLa Wally,\u201d and steals the white gown she had worn onstage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">Meanwhile, Jules becomes entangled with mobsters and unsavory representatives of a record company that threaten to sell the illicit tape unless Cynthia records with them \u2014 a plot line that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3BwG45I03NA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sends him speeding<\/a> through the streets of Paris and into the underground Metro on his moped.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">With its highly stylized presentation, including lush colors and unconventional camera angles, \u201cDiva\u201d came to epitomize a genre of film popular in the 1980s and 1990s known as \u201ccin\u00e9ma du look.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">Vincent Canby, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1982\/04\/16\/movies\/french-diva-opens-at-the-plaza.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">writing in the New York Times<\/a>, described \u201cDiva\u201d as \u201can empty though frightfully chic-looking film\u201d but conceded that Ms. Fernandez had \u201cgreat film presence.\u201d New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael, however, called the work a \u201cglittering toy of a movie,\u201d and in recent decades the film has attracted renewed interest \u2014 and affection.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">\u201cIt\u2019s astonishing how many people remember the French opera-meets-gangster flick \u2018Diva\u2019 as one of the coolest movies they\u2019ve ever seen. Everyone, including the criminals, in this luxurious, punk version of a typical French crime film was hipper than you were,\u201d Philip Kennicott wrote in The Washington Post in 2008.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">\u201cMore than a quarter-century later,\u201d he continued, \u201c\u2018Diva\u2019 seems the very opposite of cool. It seems, well, sweet. The love affair between Jules and Cynthia is consummated with a pre-dawn walk and a gentle hand on the shoulder. The passion for music, for a particular singer singing a particular song, is untainted by the ennui of too many channels, too many recordings, too many choices. The grittiness of Beineix\u2019s Paris, which seemed so edgy 27 years ago, is now just another nostalgic view of Paris.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">But the film, he concluded, \u201cas a lifestyle, a fantasy, a model for alienation and solipsism and eccentricity, has gone deep into all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">Ms. Fernandez pursued the rest of her career mainly in Europe. After \u201cDiva,\u201d she once told the Philadelphia Daily News, she had to \u201ccatch up with [her] own fame when the floodgates opened to do countless operas.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">\u201cMy repertory simply wasn\u2019t that great,\u201d she said, \u201cand there was so much expectation to do everything well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">She specialized in roles including the title Ethiopian princess of Verdi\u2019s \u201cAida\u201d and Musetta in Puccini\u2019s \u201cLa Boh\u00e8me.\u201d She was set to sing in Verdi\u2019s \u201cLuisa Miller\u201d at the Metropolitan Opera but canceled her debut there to star in \u201cCarmen Jones,\u201d Oscar Hammerstein II\u2019s take on the Bizet opera \u201cCarmen,\u201d at London\u2019s Old Vic theater in 1991. The performance won her a Laurence Olivier award for best actress in a musical.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">She said she was gratified that \u201cDiva\u201d \u2014 her only film \u2014 had carried opera to the ears of people who might never otherwise have heard it. But by all accounts, she was not, herself, a diva. She remained as comfortable in her old Philadelphia neighborhood as she was in the capitals of Europe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">\u201cI don\u2019t want to pretend to be what I\u2019m not,\u201d she told The Post.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">Wilhelmenia Wiggins was born in Philadelphia on Jan. 5, 1949. Her mother played the piano and the church organ.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">Wilhelmenia was a teenager when she saw her first opera, \u201cCarmen.\u201d In an interview years later with the Lexington Herald Leader, she recalled thinking, \u201cThat\u2019s what my voice can do. Now, I know where my energies can be channeled.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">She studied at the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Academy of Vocal Arts before receiving a scholarship to attend Juilliard. She was married to Ormond Fernandez in the early 1970s and left Juilliard shortly before graduating to care for their daughter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">Ms. Fernandez\u2019s first marriage ended in divorce. In 2001, she married Andrew W. Smith, an operatic baritone who had performed with her in \u201cPorgy and Bess.\u201d She moved with him to Kentucky, where he ran the opera program at Kentucky State University.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">Ms. Fernandez returned to college and, in 2007, received a bachelor\u2019s degree in music from the University of Kentucky, followed by a master\u2019s degree in special education from Georgetown College in Georgetown, Ky., in 2013. Until shortly before her death, she worked as a special-education teacher at a Lexington elementary school.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">Ms. Fernandez\u2019s husband died in 2018. Her daughter, of Atlanta, was her only immediate survivor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wpds-c-PJLV article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">Unlike her character in \u201cDiva,\u201d Ms. Fernandez was not, in the end, entirely averse to recording her voice and made albums of African American spirituals and the songs of George Gershwin. A voice recording, she told The Post, is \u201ca way to live forever.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/obituaries\/2024\/02\/16\/wilhelmenia-wiggins-fernandez-diva-dead\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, an American soprano who had recently established herself as an opera singer in real life when she was cast by a French director to play one on-screen in the 1981 movie \u201cDiva,\u201d a cult film that lodged her in the memory of generations of art house audiences, died Feb. 2 at her&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ventil.rs\/blog\/entertainment\/wilhelmenia-wiggins-fernandez-soprano-who-starred-in-diva-dies-at-75\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, soprano who starred in \u2018Diva,\u2019 dies at 75&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-apps\/imrs.php?src=https:\/\/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/QJ72LVCDNNGTFC7SHY6GBFEO44.jpg&w=1440","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v17.8 (Yoast SEO v22.1) - 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