A Farewell Concert From Ireland
Como's final Christmas special was filmed in January 1994 in Dublin's Point Theatre before an audience of 4,500 people, including Irish President Mary Robinson and Como's friend, the actress Maureen O'Hara. Perry Como's Irish Christmas was a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) production, made by an Irish independent production company in association with RTE. It was directed by Bob Wynn and scripted and co-produced by Irish writer Michael Feeney Callan, who worked closely with Como on what Como viewed as a farewell performance. Como had flu during the show, which took four hours to record. At the show's conclusion, Como apologized to his Dublin audience for a performance he felt was not up to his usual standards.
During his visit to Dublin, Como visited a barber shop called "The Como" on Thomas Street. The owners, lifelong fans who named their business in his honor, had sent photographs of the shop and letters to Como inviting him to visit. Photos of Como with the barbers were framed in the shop. "The Como" closed in 2002 but it remains a household name in The Liberties.
Read more about this topic: Perry Como
Famous quotes containing the words farewell, concert and/or ireland:
“O farewell griefe, and welcome joye,
Ten thousand times therefore;”
—Unknown. The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington (l. 49–50)
“... in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one of us dies, they scarcely know where to bury him.... We have no house, no place, no people of our own. We live in the streets, in the parks, in the theatres. We sit in restaurants and concert halls and look about at the hundreds of our own kind and shudder.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Breed out of the contagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)