Next on “What’s Your Story?”
“Heritage Stories of the Miami Valley”
Featuring Hamilton Historian Jim Blount
7 p.m. Oct. 23
Miami Hamilton Downtown, 221 High St.
In collaboration with the Colligan History Project
513-785-3277
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Bess-Arlene Camacho has toured the world as an opera singer and has been integral in creating and encouraging the next generation of singers and performers coming from Hamilton.
And it all started with an impromptu performance on her aunt’s dresser.
Camacho told the story of her life and career Thursday night as part of the “What’s Your Story?” series at Miami Hamilton Downtown.
Host Shaun Higgins asked her how a career that includes performances at such famed venues at the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall got started.
Camacho said that her aunt had a collection of old 78 records, among them a rendition of “The Indian Bell Song” by the famous soprano Lily Pons.
“I would mimic everything I heard,” she said. “So one day (when she was around 7 years old), I climbed on top of the dresser in her bedroom and started singing ‘The Indian Bell Song.’ “
“My aunt went to my mother and said, ‘We’ve got a little coloratura here,’ and told my mom that they needed to do something.”
The first thing they did was take her to see an opera, the classic “La Boheme,” when the Cincinnati Opera was holding its summer seasons at the Cincinnati Zoo.
“I fell in love with the character Musetta,” Camacho said, which would turn out to be a role she would perform many times throughout her career, including her European debut.
By the time she was 13 years old, she was studying opera in a pre-college program offered by Miami University, and ended up with a full scholarship to study vocal music with a minor in theory and composition.
During her junior year, she auditioned for the Melody Fair summer stock circuit and earned a role in the musical “Calamity Jane” with Ginger Rogers.
“Ginger Rogers sort of took me under her wing,” she said. “She called me ‘Little Ginger.’ ”
Doing those shows brought her to the attention of New York producers and agents who began offering her jobs, and she considered dropping out of college to begin her career in earnest.
“Ginger advised me to go back to school,” she said. “She said that she always told herself that she would finish her education but never got around to it.”
She said her career took a little detour after that when a boyfriend’s mother signed her up for the Miss Butler County pageant in 1963, which she won and then had to devote her attention to the Miss Ohio pageant, which she said she was hoping she wouldn’t win so she wouldn’t have to go on to the Miss America pageant.
She did earn a runner-up position, and the money she earned from it financed her move to New York City.
Camacho said that she never had to wait tables, but always earned her living as a performer, even if it was doing silly promotional shows and tours.
After a career that has taken her to 11 countries around the world, including South Africa where she met her husband, Camacho returned to the area in 1988 to take care of her ailing mother.
She now teaches at Miami University Hamilton and has a stable of 32 private students.
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