Mock Opera : Singer Judy Glen Gave Up Serious Art, and Look Where it Got Her--a One-Night Stand in Fullerton

For all its gravity, classical music has always managed to laugh at itself. In Britain, Gerard Hoffnung and Anna Russell separately built careers skewering the pretensions and absurdities in the world of concert music and opera.

In this country, Victor Borge continues to play to sold-out houses because of his distinctive approach to the piano literature.

Now, from Australia, comes Judy Glen, who makes her American debut in her “Spaghetti Opera,” or “The Do-It-Yourself Diva Show,” on Saturday at Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton.

“What I offer the audience are the skills to be an operatic superstar like myself,” the virtually unknown Glen said buoyantly in a recent phone interview from her home in Wentworth Falls, Australia.

“We learn acting, appearance and, of course, classical singing skills. I promise them instantaneous success, of course.

“I point out how things are done in opera and really give my audience a fast track to stardom. So when they come out, they can take their place almost instantly in the work force.”

Glen is the right person to explain how to find a spot in the work force given the detours on her own journey. She was born in Sydney, grew up in New Zealand and returned to Australia to study opera at age 21.

“It was either that or be a housewife,” Glen, 52, said. “New Zealand is a very tiny, very narrow society that’s very domestic, and I just always had this great idea of glamour. I don’t know where it came from. I had this huge vision, visualizations of myself doing things.

“It was probably a preposterous thought for a young girl in little old New Zealand. I might have well as said ‘I want to be an astronaut’ for all that was available.”

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A coloratura soprano, Glen won a scholarship to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and after that joined the Australian Opera. Yet other influences tugged at her--comedians Borge, Russell and Shelley Berman.

“Do you remember Shelley Berman?” Glen asked. “I thought he was the funniest person I ever heard in my life. So it was something of a conflict. Although I was trying to make it in legitimate opera, I always had this lurking, incipient madness.”

She decided to indulge that madness when a Comedy Store opened in Sydney in the early ‘80s.

“I didn’t really have any material,” she said. “I thought I might be very funny singing rather grubby words to an aria. So I did. I was overwhelmingly unfunny.”

She soon realized that she needed to think through and script her material.

“My first pieces were extremely scatological, which is pretty par for the course, actually. We laugh wildly at bodily functions and find that extremely amusing. I think it’s actually something you grow out of.”

She did grow out of it, turning next to that “least logical art form”--opera.

“It was like stepping off a cliff. I’d been doing touring opera with the Australian Opera, and it was either make the next step in that area or do something completely different. I did have many occasions when I thought, ‘What have I done?’ Had I stayed in Australian Opera, I probably would have had a much more secure and rewarding existence.”

Or maybe not.

“I must say,” she added, “I sometimes see people in the field of opera, and, these days, their life span is pretty short. If you’re not 30 and gorgeous, they don’t want to know about you. I’m singing better than I ever have. I consider myself ‘chronologically challenged.’ ”

Yes, her show contains serious singing, including the “Jewel Song” from Gounod’s “Faust,” “Una Voce Poco Fa” from Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” and “Summertime” from Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” among other arias.

“There seems to be enough good singing in it to satisfy people who go for that reason,” Glen said.

The show has done well in Australia. After Fullerton, its only U.S. stop, Glen will take “Spaghetti Opera” to London.

Former opera colleagues who have seen her show question her sanity, Glen said. “They think I’m absolutely stark raving nuts, but they have a very grudging admiration for the fact that I was daring enough to try. But you know, there is something very empowering about self-determining.”

Does she miss the opera world? “I don’t know if anyone would ever ask me [to return]. Why would they? I’m not gorgeous. But because I’m doing comedy, I think I can keep going until I sort of disintegrate.”

* Judy Glen will present her one-woman show, “Spaghetti Opera,” at 8 p.m. Saturday at Plummer Auditorium, 201 E. Chapman Ave., Fullerton. $20-$25. (714) 278-3371.