48 Hours
After I said hello on the phone to opera singer Alison England, she
asked me to wait a second, adding "I'm going to take the rat off my
shoulder and put you on it."
"Did you say an r-a-t?" I asked.
Indeed, and it's a trained rat.
"Yes. She's missed me," England said. "I just returned from a
seven-state tour over the last two weeks."
Along with the rat, she and 6-year-old daughter Molly Billman also
share their Glendora home with three cats, seven birds, a mouse,
seven fish -- and have joint custody of a duck and a dog with the
landlord.
The versatile artist has performed in concert at the Kennedy
Center, Radio City Music Hall and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, sung
leading roles with the Seattle, Miami and other opera companies and
starred in musical theater productions of "The Sound of Music" and
"The King and I." She does her one-woman show, "Opera, Broadway &
Beyond," Sunday for the Glendale Community Concerts Assn.
Our chat gave me a pretty good idea of her wacky sense of humor
and what life is like for a single mom whose work takes her around
the country. She does limit her road trips to only two weeks at a
time, for her daughter's sake, she said.
"Having animals at our home is a way to keep home life normal,"
England said. "It's hard on a kid whose mom is an entertainer."
On the other hand, Molly has learned a healthy sense of
independence. She stays with her dad while Mom is away, and is
capable of relying on herself, England said.
Sunday's show begins with "Juliette's Waltz" from "Romeo and
Juliet" by Charles Gounod, and progresses to Rodgers and
Hammerstein's "Wonderful Guy" and a medley from Andrew Lloyd Webber's
"Phantom of the Opera."
England admits while she takes her opera seriously, her antics on
stage border on outrageous. She likens herself to a combination of
1950s opera singer Maria Callas, Judy Garland and Carol Burnett.
Take her recent appearance on a TV morning news show in Hawaii
while she was there performing in "La Boheme" with the Hawaii Opera
Theatre. She brought along a feather boa and when she sang an aria to
the show's male host, taunted him with it.
"I was hanging upside down on the piano by the end of the aria,"
she quipped. "I do it to show opera singers can do other things. I
love being radical."
Her playful take on the music, she said, helps alleviate the fear
people have of opera.
"You will love it, if you will understand it," she said. "We need
more of that. Opera has to stay alive. It offers a very deep emotion,
