A marvelous celebration of the life and career of the brilliant
American soprano, incorporating interviews with the singer (who
died in 1981) as well as the recollections of people who worked
with her and for her, of family members, and of artistic
colleagues. Each chapter of interviews is followed by a
comprehensive documentary section drawn from such items as letters
by Ponselle and reviews of her performances. The result is a
fascinating, complex, and convincing portrait of a remarkable
woman. Rosa Ponselle was born in 1897, in Meriden, Conn., to
Italian immigrants. She studied music with her mother, and with her
sister Carmilla formed the Italian Girls, a successful vaudeville
act that eventually took them to New York, where they shared the
bill with such luminaries as Al Jolson, Ed Wynn, and the Astaires.
Caruso heard her sing, and the rest is history: In 1919 she became
an overnight star at the Metropolitan Opera, and for roughly 20
years she was the American prima diva, a tempestuous star not just
of opera, but the concert stage, radio, and recordings. She made
her last appearence at the Met in 1937, after some 365
performances; she was, she tells Drake, "tired of the grind." She
spent the rest of her long life as a society hostess, usually
living alone (her one marriage didn't last long). We know her
through her recordings, most of which she condemns as ruined by
"that damned clock" (i.e., the need to fit a performance within the
confines of a 78 rpm recording, which drove singers to sing faster
and louder, sacrificing nuance and contrast). Some of her
recordings, such as the two arias from Vestale made in 1926, are
classics. Her recollections of fellow perforers are frank, vivid
and perceptive. Ponselle's husband remembered her as "alluring,
bright, shrewd . . . sometimes just impossible." Drake's splendid
book gives us the full measure of her - both as diva and vaudeville
star turned society hostess and self-exiled recluse. (Kirkus
Reviews)
Rosa Ponselle's place as one of the century's great singers was
destined from the moment of her 1918 debut, opposite Enrico Caruso,
in the Metropolitan Opera premiere of La forza del destino. For the
next two decades, her voice of unparalleled beauty and power
continued to mesmerize audiences. Even today, her recordings keep
her influence alive in the Italian repertory. Ponselle's path from
Meriden, Connecticut, through her apprenticeship on the vaudeville
circuit with her sister Carmela to acclaim on the stage of the Met
is one of opera's great romantic stories. The author of this
centenary biography, James A. Drake, began researching that story
in collaboration with Ponselle herself for their 1982 book,
Ponselle: A Singer's Life. The present work not only collects many
of the interviews with Ponselle that provided the raw material for
the earlier biography, but also includes interviews with friends,
colleagues, and associates that supplement, support - and sometimes
contradict - her own recollections. In addition, the author has
scrutinized the documentary record for contemporary reports of
these events, and has woven them into a well-crafted, absorbing
chronicle of the diva's struggle from New York to Hollywood and
abroad. Supplemented with many rare photographs, an updated
discography, an extensive bibliography, and a chronology of her
vaudeville, operatic, and concert performances, Rosa Ponselle: A
Centenary Biography is an invitation to readers to join in the
engrossing search for the real Rosa Ponselle.
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