It’s the most famous first meeting in all of Elvis history. A party in Bad Nauheim, Germany, September 1959. He was in the Army. She was 14 years old.
Priscilla later said her very first impression was that he was “better looking than he was on screen.” But it’s what they talked about that night that most fans have never heard.
At some point Elvis asked her what kind of music she liked.
Her answer wasn’t Elvis. It wasn’t rock n’ roll at all. And here’s the twist, it was reportedly his favorite too.
Can you guess what a teenage girl named that stopped the King of Rock n’ Roll in his tracks?
The music Priscilla reportedly named that night
This is a taste of it, straight from the film she reportedly mentioned. Turn the sound up. You might be surprised this is what the two of them bonded over.
The name she gave, as the story goes, was Mario Lanza. The great opera tenor. And the album she reportedly loved was “The Student Prince.”
Elvis, the story goes, looked at her and said, “You’re kidding. How do you know about Mario Lanza?” He told her it was his favorite too. Now, that exchange comes from a single Elvis biography site with no source attached, so treat it as a lovely bit of lore rather than gospel. That’s why we say reportedly.
But here’s what isn’t in doubt. Elvis really did love that kind of music. In a 2019 interview Priscilla said his record collection surprised people. “He had Mozart, he had Brahms, he had Mario Lanza and people are shocked when they hear that,” she said.
And when Graceland went through and catalogued all his records in 2003, a spokesman said Lanza’s album was the only opera recording in the entire collection. The one and only. Out of everything the man owned, one lonely opera record, and it belonged to the tenor a 14-year-old girl reportedly named at a party in Germany.
Hear Lanza’s soaring voice from “The Student Prince”
Give this one a minute. This is the big, full-throated sound that Elvis quietly carried with him his whole life.
People forget this side of him. We picture the swiveling hips and the leather and the lightning-bolt energy. But underneath all that was a man who’d put on an opera record when the house went quiet.
You can even hear it in his own music. When Elvis recorded “It’s Now or Never,” he was reaching for exactly that kind of grand, romantic, operatic feeling.
Elvis reaching for his operatic side
Listen to the big finish on this one and you’ll hear the Mario Lanza in him plain as day.
So the next time someone tells you Elvis was all flash and no depth, tell them about the opera record. And about a shy 14-year-old who reportedly named his favorite singer the very first night they met.