About This Issue

This is the second of the two "Twentieth-Century Singers" issues that began in the summer of 2004. The opening article, Nicholas E. Limansky's "Luisa Tetrazzini: Coloratura Secrets," looks at one of the great vocalists of the early years of the century. Accounts ofTetrazzini's performance on the operatic stage and recital platform evoke a bygone era, and Limansky's close examination of a dozen of her recordings is likely to send readers in search of CD transfers better prepared to listen to them (and to other sound artifacts of that vintage). In "Reverenza! Fedora Barbieri, 1920-2003," the mezzo-soprano's career is recounted, often in her own words, supplemented by Robert Baxter's research (including her correspondence in the Metropolitan Opera Archives). He, too, surveys his subject's recordings, concluding with a surprisingly substantial discography.

On a number of important occasions, Barbieri appeared opposite Maria Callas. Robert E. Seletsky provides a thought-provoking look at this most controversial of singers in "The Performance Practice of Maria Callas: Interpretation and Instinct." Writing from the perspective of a performer of baroque music, Seletsky challenges the often-repeated claim that Callas revived the performance style and repertoire of the past; her distinctive contributions lay elsewhere, as he shows in his analyses of eight selected "epiphanies" to be found in unexpected moments in her performances.

The bel canto repertoire championed by Callas was taken up (and greatly enlarged) by two sopranos who, after years of local recognition, were suddenly thrust into international prominence—Joan Sutherland and Beverly Sills. In "Sutherland before Lucia: The 1948-1958 Recordings," I survey the available recordings from the decade before she became a star "overnight." Beth Hart writes from the perspective of someone who became an admirer of Sills while she was singing Baby Doe at the New York City Opera; perhaps more importantly, she also writes from her professional perspective as a psychoanalyst, and in "What Becomes Legend Most?" she applies this expertise in an analysis of a number of Sills's most powerful performances.

The articles conclude with contributions from a number of Opera Quarterly readers. When the late E. Thomas Glasow planned these two Twentieth-Century Singer issues, he solicited personal anecdotes about encounters with great singers. Although I have given these vignettes the somewhat flippant title "Dining with Divas" (and dining does figure prominently in a number of them), there is a sense in which we truly are nourished by artists such as these. Readers will, I think, find these stories alternately (sometimes simultaneously) funny, touching, and instructive.

In what might threaten to become a soprano-heavy issue, David Bruce's Quarterly Quiz focuses on tenors, and the first two books reviewed are a new biography of a tenor (Mario Lanza) and an autobiography of a mezzo-soprano (Marilyn Horne). Also reviewed are two recent books about Wagner and the latest edition of a standard history of opera. The DVD reviews include issues of an old RAI telecast of Sonnambula and a more recent production of Prokofiev's War and Peace. A recital by Aase Nordmo Løvberg leads off the CD reviews, followed by reviews of three operatic rarities: Galuppi's L'amante di tutte, Meyerbeer's Marguerite d'Anjou, and Puccini's Edgar.

The issue ends as it began, with tributes to Tom Glasow, this time from a number of people who worked with him during his years as editor of this journal. Having been book review editor for The Opera Quarterly for the past five years, I can readily corroborate their statements about his skill, his dedication, and his gentle ability to bring out a writer's best. We have all been enriched by knowing him and are diminished by his loss.