The Metropolitan Opera Guild’s luncheon honoring Marilyn Horne Oct. 31 was admiring, affectionate and moving, but not syrupy—Horne herself wouldn’t have stood for that. The mezzo-soprano has been an irrepressible comedienne on stage and off, and is just as apt to be wry at her own expense as about any other topic. At the Guild’s memorial tribute to Joan Sutherland tribute at Town Hall last May, Horne shared the rostrum with Sutherland’s widower, conductor Richard Bonynge. He informed the audience that a veteran house doctor at London’s Covent Garden had once pronounced Sutherland’s the healthiest vocal chords he’d examined in his decades of practice. “I was always told that mine were short and thick,” Horne responded. “Like the rest of me.”

Richard Bonynge, Marilyn Horne and her daughter, Angela Lewis Houle. Photograph by Dario Acosta.

Bonynge was also a speaker at the Horne tribute. He conducted Horne and Sutherland together many times, and he recalled a night when all three were engaged in Norma at Covent Garden. Apparently discommoded by the raked stage, Horne fell flat to the ground and let out a “Shit” heard ’round the opera house. (Her speaking voice, Bonynge noted, is no less resonant than her singing.) When it came Horne’s time to speak to the luncheon guests, she added that she was brought out of her shock by Sutherland’s voice rousing her: “Come on ducks, I’ll get you up!”

The tribute was held in the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria, where a video biography reminded us that Horne is an all-American success story. Her parents moved to California specifically so that their daughters could take advantage of its low public college tuition. Now 77, Horne sang with the Met from 1970 until 1996, as well as at many other places around the country and the world. A video compilation of her performances demonstrated her virtuosity and versatility.

At the Waldorf, Horne sat on a dais with guests including Roberta Peters and Martina Arroyo, ex-Met Opera stars who are on the board of the Guild. Live musical entertainment was supplied by mezzo Stephanie Blythe. Horne once advised her that, “Only when you’re able to sing a song are you going to be able to sing opera.” (Horne is a great promoter of recital.) Blythe now was on the same page: “I’ve had it up to here with arias!” she declared, and sang instead three songs, going from Baroque (“Amarilli” by Caccini) to early 20th-century operetta (Victor Herbert’s “To the Land of My Own Romance”) to a torchy rendition of Irving Berlin’s “What’ll I Do?”

It’s something wonderful when after a lifetime in opera a singer can still be enchanted with the operatic voice. Blythe sang on a platform directly behind Horne, who said that hearing that sound in such proximity was thrilling.

The luncheon functioned a bit like This Is Your Life: people got up from their tables on the ballroom floor and contributed anecdotes. And of course there was a bit of This Is Our Life for most of the people who attended. My first-hand memories of Horne go back to 1972, when I waited on a nighttime line for standing room tickets to the Met season’s opening night, a new production of Carmen conducted by Bernstein. Standing-room demand for events like this was clamorous at the time. The New York Times sent a reporter to the line. The next day he printed my blithe declaration that this was more important than school. (My parents were wonderful to humor me, but they knew I didn’t like school and I was infatuated with opera.)

Horne’s daughter Angela Lewis Houle was born in 1965 when Horne was married to the late conductor Henry Lewis. Houle is now a psychiatry professor. From the dais she said that while opera hadn’t meant much to her when she was growing up, as an adult she had started to love her mother’s singing. “I haven’t said this to her,” she told us. Horne concurred with a shake of her head. “Believe me, there were times when I never expected to hear those words,” Horne said in her remarks. “You’ve paid a big price for my career,” she told her daughter.

Horne made a point of thanking the patrons, stating that in “the Great Beyond,” humanity would be valued for its cultural attainments and not “those damn wars!” At the end, Horne’s many former colleagues in attendance were identified at their tables and stood up to join her on stage.

Read more by Joel Lobenthal at Lobenthal.com.