Dear devotees: I am pleased to be able to announce that Marston Records’ 10-CD set devoted to the recordings of the great American baritone Lawrence Tibbett is at last ready for release, and that an hour-long program, heard on 435 NPR stations (link below) has been aired in connection with it. Since I contributed to both the set and the broadcast, I cannot review them. But I can briefly describe and (of course) recommend them.

The Marston release. The set, long delayed owing to complications that originated with the pandemic shutdown, comprises every side that Tibbett recorded during his long, exclusive relationship with RCA Victor, including unreleased alternate takes, plus a large selection of his radio and film recordings, and even a live recital from the Worcester Festival. It is by far the most inclusive gathering of Tibbett material ever released, and is up to Marston’s customarily high standards of restoration and presentation. Coming up on 75 years since his last Metropolitan performance, there is still a plausible case to be made for Tibbett as the greatest male American classical singer. He set a standard for the singing and acting of the major Verdi baritone roles (Simon Boccanegra, Iago, Rigoletto, Germont) that has not been surpassed. He championed the cause of American opera with Deems Taylor’s Peter Ibbetson, Louis Gruenberg’s Emperor Jones, and others, and with Helen Jepson was the first to record the important solos and duets from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, with the composer in attendance. With his hundreds of radio broadcasts, early sound film appearances, and extensive recital tours, he penetrated the American popular culture as no other operatic artist before or since. In my 35,000-word essay, I place critical discussion of his recordings in an ongoing biographical context, and attempt to bring some further clarity to the causes of the vocal crisis that, though it did not end his career, sharply curtailed his effectiveness over its final decade. The set’s booklet also contains an introduction by Will Crutchfield and a wonderful trove of photos, some never before published. The set may be ordered now, and will ship before the end of the month—see the Marston website for details.

The NPR program. This is an episode in the long-running series More than Music, conceived and hosted by Joseph Horowitz. The series is devoted primarily to American music and the American classical music scene, including its black and indigenous influences, so Tibbett’s uniquely American story is a natural fit. The program presents some choice Tibbett recordings reflecting his broad artistic sympathies, alternating with discussion guided by its host, with observations from an intriguing quartet of guests: baritone Thomas Hampson, tenor George Shirley, author and NYT columnist John McWhorter, and myself. It was first broadcast on the morning of March 19, with times dependent on local stations’ schedules. The full program, along with Horowitz’s excellent article in artsjournal on Tibbett and our rapidly changing sensibilities, can be accessed here.

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NEXT TIME: Under the time pressures of my recent articles on Maria Callas, I neglected this usual end-of-post feature. So: my principal subject will be the Metropolitan’s new production of Verdi’s long-absent La Forza del destino, whose MIA status I first wrote about a little over six years ago. Has that status actually changed? Target date: Friday, April 19.