Thursday, August 29, 2013

Yma Sumac and the Performance of Inca Identity

Yma Sumac was a Peruvian soprano who won international fame in the 1950s. Her success was based, at least in part, on her vocal range which was said to be well over four octaves. Or was she a bored Brooklyn housewife named Amy Camus (Yma Sumac spelled backwards) ?



Accounts of Sumac’s life are full of fantasy and contradictions. Zoila Mendoza, a Peruvian anthropologist whose mother was a childhood friend of the singer in Peru, sets the record straight in this article at The Appendix.
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