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 hile
most people consider themselves lucky if they can whistle "Mary Had
a Little Lamb" or "Jingle Bells," Barimo prefers "Sempre
Libera" from Verdi's opera La Traviata.
Barimo, an
18-year-old freshman at Columbia University, has come a long way from
his cribside where he mimicked the shrill cry of his canary, Sunshine.
Barimo became the first person to whistle at the Carnegie Hall when he
performed an aria from Mozart's Magic Flute on March 3, 2003.
It was not
the first time Barimo has performed in public. He has won several whistling
competitions, including the 1999 Millennium World Championships of Musical
Whistling when he was only 15. But his first performance ever was in school,
where he happily recalls "taunting his teacher in class."
In spite
of having performed at Carnegie Hall, he has yet to win over his fellow
students.
"I don't
practice as much as I should," said Barimo, adding that his whistling
disturbed the other students in his small, crowded dorm.
In a quiet
room in the fifth floor of Lerner Hall on the Columbia campus, high above
a noisy cafeteria, Michael Barimo began to whistle. It started with a
low soft note and rose to a shrill crescendo before fading out on a gentle
note again.
 arimo,
an aspiring opera singer, grew up in Orlando, Fla., singing as soprano
boy in the Central Florida Lyric Opera. As he learned to sing arias from
various operas, Barimo would whistle to figure out the tunes.
In New York,
the soprano Licia Albanese heard Barimo whistling during a difficult operatic
passage and, impressed, asked him to whistle at a concert at Alice Tully
Hall.
Familiar
with various classical musicians, Barimo also listens to music by a wide
range of pop artists such as Missy Elliot, Shakira and Pulp.
"I go
through phases with pop," said Barimo, explaining that he would get
bored with trendy songs after a while. "With opera it's all the time.
A month later, it still sounds good."
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