Four years ago a little girl from North Beach, who had never set foot on a stage or a concert platform sang an audition for Maestro Gaetano Merola of the San Francisco Opera Company. This week that same little girl, whose name is Josephine Tumminia, will make her debut in New York as the latest star to be added to the roster of the Metropolitan Opera Company. (San Francisco Chronicle 1940)
After her San Francisco Opera debut, Josephine Tumminia became a local celebrity. On February 6, 1936 she sang as a soloist at Municipal Concert of the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Pierre Monteux. She was soon thrust further into the limelight appearing on operetta composer Sigmund Romberg's nationally syndicated radio program on the NBC's Red Network on March 16, 1936 along side the famed star of the stage and screen, Lionel Barrymore. This led to rumors that Paramount film studios was considering her for a long term contract.
She continued with Romberg through the early summer when she appear on Bing Crosby's Kraft Music Hour broadcast from Los Angeles on August 13, 1936, sharing the program with Louis Armstrong. In the fall of 1936 she returned to the San Francisco Opera Company where she shined in the role of Gilda in Rigoletto. The Chronicle's music critic, Alfred Frankenstein, singled her out for praise:
Miss Tumminia made the big hit of her brief career as Gilda. This for a lovely and fragile impersonation, and for a "Caro Nome" of unique and special quality... Miss Tumminia was Gilda. As she sang, the florid song took on such warmth of dramatic meaning as it is possible for it take on and, without losing any of its brilliance, remained and essential link in a lyric tragedy. The purity of her small, light voice has been remarked before. Likewise he unfailing musicianship. Her lyric Gilda is in its own way no less and achievement than her comic Rosina.
The following summer she was back on the airwaves, singing on Bing Crosby's program. She remained an occasional guest on Crosby's Kraft Music Hall even as she reprised her role of Gilda in San Francisco in the Fall.
Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra were the house band on Crosby's show which lead to a unique crossover recording. On February 27, 1937 she went into Decca Records Los Angeles recording studio with Dorsey's orchestra to record a swing arrangement of "La capinera" (The Wren), a late 19th century light-classical showpiece for soprano voice composed by Julius Benedict. Robert L. Stockdale remarked that this was "one of the most unusual recordings ever produced by Jimmy [Dorsey]."
On March 17, 1937 she rejoined the orchestra to sing her unique version of the "Blue Danube Waltz" by Johann Strauss. One interesting sidelight - Tumminia shared her recording session with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra's recording of songs from the Fred Astaire / Ginger Roger movie Shall We Dance where they appeared on the soundtrack. Her recordings were released as both sides of the 12" double-faced 78 rpm recording Decca 29009.
Reviewers of that time were not sure what to make of this recording. Irving Kolodin found no fault with the "straight job" that Tumminia achieved in her performance but found fault with the arrangement. "What results is some of the aptest satire on coloratura that has yet to appear." Richard Gilbert also faulted the "screwy arrangement." The New Yorker noted that "Miss Tumminia retains her intonation and her bright, somewhat determined vocalizing through the goings-on," but goes on to dismissed the result as "a slick stunt and goes on the list of the best curios." Only Billboard magazine put in the good word: "a collector's classic for those who take their conservatory music toasted with jam... prima donna pipes according to Hoyle while the gang goes bucketing."
In 1947, John Ball, Jr. published this appreciation:
This unique record is strictly a novelty, but an exceptionally good one. Miss Tumminia, who has been heard at the Metropolitan Opera, sings the Blue Danube, not too well, but acceptably. Jimmy Dorsey and his lively crew provide the accompaniment. Strangely enough it all fits together. What comes out of the loudspeaker is a little hard to define, but we find it quite entertaining listening just the same.
Corinne Koshland (Mrs. Marcus Koshland) presented Josephine Tumminia in a recital on February 3, 1938 at her Presidio Heights mansion to help raise money support her studies in Europe. For many years Mr. and Mrs. Koshland were important patrons of the arts in San Francisco who also helped fund Yehudi Menuhin's studies abroad. Gary Gidden's biography of Bing Crosby also notes the crooner's "investment" in Josephine Tumminia.
She travelled to Milan to study with Mario Cordona. During these two and a half years she performed in Bologna, Lugano and in Palermo, her father's hometown. A 1938 article in the Examiner rumored that she was being filmed in her role of Gilda at Cinema City in Rome. She also sang at the Royal Opera in Belgrade where she was awarded Yugoslavia's Order of San Caba. Leaving Italy in 1940 she continued performing in Caracas and then Puerto Rico before returning the United States.
She was on her way to the Metropolitan Opera...
"Josephine Tumminia Makes Debut in N.Y. This Week," San Francisco Chronicle December 26, 1940
Kolodin, Irving, "Recorded Music," American Mercury July 1937.
Needham, Howard, "Lionel Barrymore Will Be Star in New Romberg Series Starting Tonight," San Francisco Chronicle March 16, 1936.
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