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OPERA STARS IN THE SUN by Mary Jane Matz

OPERA STARS IN THE SUN

By

Publisher: Farrar, Straus

Metropolitan artists (this is strictly a family affair) out from under the stage lights and as people under the sunlight are sure to draw a goodly crowd of aficionados. Sponsored by the Mt Opera Guild, this pleasant book (gathered from interviews, some having appeared in Opera News) introduces us to the current roster of opera stars as people enjoying their homes or avocations, offering cooking suggestions or recalling their native cities. We meet Jarmila Novotna as the Baroness Daubek, visit Lisa Della Casa's castle; we find that Jerome Hines is a chemist, Nell Rankin a collector of African marble, Renata Tebaldi a woman of fashion, Ralph Herbert a mountaineer, Jan Peerce a religious family man. There are anecdotes by two gentlemen with awesome lists of roles to their names -- Cehanovsky and de Polis, and comments from chorus and orchestra. With each artist's interview there is a short set of statistics: place of birth, early training, operatic debut, early experience (meaning pre-Met), Metropolitan roles and date of debuts. (Is it cantankerous to take exception to the ""early experience"" and wish it had been ""other"" when it applies to such notables as Marian Anderson? And birth dates are still an interesting item tactfully absent.) A good gift item for the opera lover.