Lily Pons: A Centennial Portrait, and: Nicolai Gedda: My Life and Art (review)

Lily Pons: A Centennial Portrait. Edited by James A. Drake and Kristin Beall Ludecke. (Opera Biography Series, 11.) Portland, Ore.: Amadeus Press, 1999. [250 p. ISBN 1-57467-047-6. $29.95.]

Nicolai Gedda: My Life and Art. By Nicolai Gedda and Aino Sellermark Gedda. Translated by Tom Geddes. (Opera Biography Series, 12.) Portland, Ore.: Amadeus Press, 1999. [242 p. ISBN 1-57467-048-4. $24.95.]

Two books about opera singers with contrasting careers were published and released by Amadeus Press at the same time. One singer was beloved by the public though constantly derided by critics; the other, though never given superstar adulation by the public, was favored by many critics as the most musicianly tenor of his time. Both books fill a void, as there has not previously been a monograph on either singer. Unfortunately, these books do not fulfill the needs of the serious scholar, and even the casual opera fan will become frustrated by aspects of each.

The format of Lily Pons: A Centennial Portrait is hardly biographical. The book is primarily a collection of periodical articles, the majority of which first appeared in Etude magazine; many were ghostwritten for Pons by her publicity agent, and several others are interviews with her. Drake and Ludecke add some commentary to set the facts in order, but it is difficult to keep fact separated from the fictions Pons felt compelled to sustain throughout her life. For example, for many years all of the important reference sources gave 1904 as her birth year, rather than the correct 1898. This allowed her to project the image of the shy, youthful debutante at the Metropolitan Opera, but as her career came to an end, some wondered why her voice lost its bloom at this younger age. Two of the most interesting and enlightening articles are by Giacomo Lauri-Volpi and W. J. Henderson. In "Coloraturas at the Metropolitan," Lauri-Volpi compares and contrasts Maria Barrientos, Amelita Galli-Curci, Graziella Pareto, Marion Talley, and Toti Dal Monte with Pons. He had sung with all of these singers, and his comments, adapted from an unpublished translation of Voci parallele (Milan: Aldo Garzanti, 1955), carry the authority born of more than forty years as a leading tenor. Henderson's article, titled "Lily Pons and Adelina Patti," was written for the New York Sun in February 1931 as a rebuttal to the public outcry when he had dared to criticize Pons's vocal technique. He wrote that the adulation the singer was receiving was premature, though she might one day match the great Patti. One wonders what Henderson would have made of the latter stages of Pons's career.

The appendixes are worthy of note. The "Selected Bibliography" is useful, as it focuses on those books and periodical articles that feature important information on Pons rather than just mention her in passing. The filmography would have been more helpful if the songs and arias Pons sang in each film had been listed. George Jellinek's article on the Pons recordings is followed by an excellent discography. I prefer to have a discography in chronological order, but Bill Park has arranged the entries by title under the three different companies for which Pons recorded. There is no attempt at a chronology, a feature found quite often in biographies of singers and very useful in tracing the career of a performer. In the case of Pons, it would show that after her first decade with the Metropolitan Opera, she restricted herself to a handful of roles that suited her well. Perhaps the task of tracing all of her performances during and just after World War II, when she toured Europe and Asia entertaining military personnel, proved daunting.

Nicolai Gedda: My Life and Art grew out of interviews given to Aino Sellermark Gedda before she became the singer's wife. The book is candid about many aspects of Gedda's...