I hope the perspective afforded by these references to the not-too-distant past have been of some value. The point isn’t so much to once again document the decline of heavy-calibre singing and conducting as to consciousness-raise with respect to what’s missing from our contemporary experience of so many of our canonical masterworks. A suggested point of departure for aspirational efforts, one would think.

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Supplemental mini-bibliography (additional to entries at the end of “Siegfried of Siegfried,” 5/10/19):

Franca, Ida: Manual of Bel Canto, Coward-McCann, NY, 1959

Kolodin, Irving: The Story of the Metropolitan Opera, 1883-1950, Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 1953

Emmons, Shirlee: Tristanissimo (authorized biography of Lauritz Melchior), Schirmer Books, NY,  1990

Mayer, Hans (Jack Zipes, trans.): Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, Rizzoli, NY, 1976

Melchior, Ib: Lauritz Melchior/The Golden Years of Bayreuth, Baskerville Publishers, Ft. Worth, 2003 (w/CD)

Osborne, Conrad L.: Lauritz Melchior: An Appreciation (essay in the booklet accompanying the Met release of the Tannhāuser broadcast of 1/4/41, Metropolitan Opera Guild, NY, 1985)

Seltsam, William H.: Metropolitan Opera Annals (Vol. 1, 1883-1947), H. W. Wilson Co., NY, 1947

Varnay, Astrid (with Donald Arthur): 55 Years in Five Acts/My Life in Opera, Northeastern University Press, 2000

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NEXT TIME: Next season, we will have one of the Met’s infrequent excursions into the operas of George Frideric Handel—in this case his early Italian succès fou, Agrippina. So, after six consecutive posts (three on Feodor Chaliapin, three on Wagner’s Siegfried) devoted to works and singers who were instrumental in the development of modern operatic dramaturgy and modern operatic singingacting, it will be a nice change to pay some attention to one mode of premodern operatic aesthetics, and perhaps give us all (that is, all of us who are not obsessive Handelians) some preparatory familiarization with this intriguing piece.

Please note a slight change of schedule, the result of the transformation of the above into a full-blown post: Agrippina will be brought to you on June 28, and the July and August postings will follow at four-week intervals before returning to a busier seasonal schedule in September.

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