" House Of Flowers" Arlen & Truman Capote Triumph. In 1954, Arlen was asked if he would compose the music for a Broadway production of House of Flowers. It was to be based on Capote's 1950 short story " House of Flowers." The author had spent several months in Haiti where he spent considerable time visiting and befriending a bordello run by a bossy Madame Fleur. Arlen believed that the costumes, songs and colourful characters would make an entertaining show. Pear Bailey played the enterprising Madame Fleur who had a genuine affection for her charges. A then young Diahann Carroll was to play Ottilie, a young girl in love with Royal, a country boy with these two characters to portray the love interest in the show.
" House of Flowers", was so named because Madame Fleur gave horticultural names to her girls, names like Tulip, Gladiola, Pansy and Ottiliie. Ottile consults the Houngan or voodoo priest who recounts a folk tale .When a bee lies sleeping in the palm of your hand and stings you, and you don't feel it, then you have found your true love or so the folk tale maintains.
Diahann Caroll sings A Sleepin' Bee, a marvellous ballad that David Jenness and Don Velsey, authors of Classic American Popular Song, The Second Half Century, 1950-2000
have described as "One of the greatest ballads of the half-century and has an extraordinary glowing quality, achieved by the most minimal means, like raising by one step the highest tone of the voice line in the second four bars, as compared with the first four."
Rather than citing further technical analysis of the song's merits,, listen instead to Diahann Carroll sing the song in a live television performance. Her performance is heartfelt and totally captivating.
LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu91wObYGBs
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