THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410080183
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BILL RUEHLMANN
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
She's nuts. Hope Mihalap worked for Sir Rudolf Bing, general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, in New York City, and all the woman can talk about is the way diva Zinka Milanov, resplendent in jewels and mink, routinely ordered her luncheon repast at Burger Pit:
``Geeve me Swiss chiz on rye, plenty of mustard.''
Absolutely nuts:
She talks about tenor Jan Peerce, who starred in ``Lucia di Lammermoor,'' slyly parking his chewing gum on the scenery in time for an opening aria.
She talks about big-timer Eugenio Fernandi - his bellicose, gesticulating, 300-pound mother in tow - lumbering to catch the New England train, further overburdened by a suitcase full of Italian salami.
``By now legendary,'' confides Mihalap, ``is the night in Boston that Birgit Nilsson, the great Swedish soprano, held a note longer than Franco Corelli, who had near apoplexy about it later in the dressing room. He threatened to quit that instant until Bing cleverly suggested he bite Nilsson in the next act. Apparently he lost his nerve, but later Nilsson sent Bing a telegram from Minneapolis, the next stop on the tour.
`` `Corelli bit me tonight,' she wired, `am being treated for rabies.' ''
Nuts!
Or perhaps not so very, to anyone who, like me, finds it downright impossible to stop listening to this irrepressibly irreverent raconteur.
``I am,'' she has reported accurately, ``a down-to-earth storyteller.''
The undeniable evidence resides in her wild and warm new book, Where There's Hope There's Life and Laughter (Trudy Knox, 200 pp., $12.50), a reminiscence of the amazing events that took her to the speaker's lectern for a living.
``When I was two years old,'' she begins, ``Uncle Kallimachos stood me up on the kitchen table and taught me to spell Budweiser, Schlitz and Pabst. An audience consisting of my parents, two aunts, three uncles, my grandmother and a great-aunt clapped, cheered and shouted bravos. This led me into show business.''
Makes perfect sense.
Humorist Mihalap, 59, has long been an important Hampton Roads resource. Born Greek and wed Russian, she exudes a savvy international flair that makes Mihalap our best local advertisement on the lecture circuit; and her surpassing wit and good sense, as a promoter of regional opera and the arts, have made her a walking commercial that true intellect can exist quite apart from pretension.
``The humorist learns not to take herself so seriously, to look for her own foibles and those of the ones she loves best, and to poke gentle but affectionate fun at them,'' writes Mihalap. ``How else can one be part of the common human experience? We are all in this together, and the more we smile, the more we enjoy it and the better we survive.''
The Chamber of Commerce here should pay this woman a monthly stipend simply for remaining in our midst. It has been accurately observed that a prophet is without honor in her own country. Generally regarded as an occasionally outrageous if always hip booster of the Virginia Opera Association in Norfolk, Mihalap elsewhere has received the Mark Twain Award for Humor from the International Platform Association and the Council of Peers Award of Excellence from the National Speakers Association.
She has also had a life. Like her Cypriot grandmother, Vassar grad Mihalap didn't just march to a different drummer, she stampeded. With her tough-minded, dashing but amiably long-suffering husband, Leonid, a professor emeritus of Russian language and literature at Old Dominion University, Mihalap has raised three talented children and a wide assortment of doting house pets, house guests and music buffs. Not bad at all for a person whose criteria for a good mate were relatively simple:
``He had to have a good sense of humor and not be too cynical. Under no circumstances should he know or care more about fashion or house decor than I did. I wanted him to want children and to be easy on them. He had to love to eat and not be picky about it. And his feet must absolutely be larger than mine.''
For the record, Larry's are.
But not by that much.
It's all in the book, which is an uncompromisingly factual look at the sideways world of a woman with advanced degrees in whimsy. ``I have noticed anyway,'' she shrugs, ``that people only believe you when you lie.'' Where There's Hope is a well-told tale that should make every reader feel better.
If you're down, take two chapters and call me in the morning. MEMO: Bill Ruehlmann is a mass communication professor at Virginia Wesleyan
College. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Hope Mihalap
by CNB