Jarmila Novotna, Adele Leigh, and Sena Jurinac

I had seen beautiful photos of Jarmila Novotná in books devoted to the Met and the Vienna Staatsoper, but I knew only a few details of her life and career before reading Lanfranco Rasponi's interview with her in The Last Prima Donnas. By comparison with the fifty other divas in that illuminating book, Novotná struck me as both the most lovable and the most selfless of all.

During the next few years I tracked down the few Novotná recordings then available, including not only arias from her best-known portrayals but also the Czech folk-song repertory for which she was so celebrated. I enjoyed her German-language film of The Bartered Bride but was even more thrilled when a cable channel showed The Search, the film in which Novotná starred with Montgomery Clift. She was dignified, eloquent, and extraordinarily moving in her portrayal of a mother searching for her young son in war-torn Europe.

In 1993 National Public Radio aired a feature story on Novotná—I believe it commemorated an upcoming celebration in her honor that was soon to take place in the Czech Republic. I remember being utterly entranced by this eighty-five-year-old, who expressed her outlook on life and art with an ageless charm and liveliness.

I felt an immediate desire to write to Novotná to applaud the artistry I had experienced on recordings and film and to thank her for giving me and countless other radio listeners such pleasure through the NPR interview. She was one of the few Emmy Destinn pupils still alive, and I was eager to read whatever memories she had of her great predecessor and compatriot. Novotná had judged for the Zachary Awards vocal competition, as had I, and it was through the kindness of competition director Nedra Zachary that I obtained her address. Her reply, dated 22 May 1993—written in her own hand—was informative, forthright, and endearing:

Dear Mr. Pines,

What a coincidence that you were a judge in the Zachary competition. [Dr. and Mrs. Zachary] became also my best friends. I think nothing brings people closer together than music.

It makes me happy that you liked The Search. It is now available on video, but you have it anyway. We made it in 1947 right after the war, and all my feeling went out to the unhappy people, and especially children, who suffered through the horrors of the war. So it was not difficult for me to portray that mother, I just lived it. My autobiography was just released in Czech, but now I am getting it ready in English—I hope to find a publisher.

You asked me to recall for you my memories of my first teacher, Emmy Destinn. It was she who led me to appreciate Mozart's genius. She maintained that one who can sing Mozart can sing everything, because his apparent simplicity requires the greatest control. The most important [thing] is singing from the diaphragm. It means that the outgoing breath comes from the bottom of the lungs. One must lift the chest high, before the lungs are filled with air. One inhales slowly, counting to four, holds the breath for a moment and exhales counting 4. This gentle breathing in and out from the diaphragm does not however change the position of the still breast bone, nor is there movement of the shoulders. It is this action of the breath upon the vocal cords that produces sound.

I am happy that I had her advice right in the beginning. Although she was not long in Prague, I profited with what I learned from her enormously. You see, I remembered it very well.

With all my best wishes I am
sincerely,

Jarmila Novotná

I was so lucky to hear from her. Sadly, less than a year later I read her obituary in the New York Times. When one of my musical heroines dies, I pay her my own little...