Icons of Opera: A History in Photographs 1900-2000. (Books).(Review)(Brief Article)

Icons of Opera: A History in Photographs 1900-2000 by Matthew Boyden Thunder Bay Press, 175 pp. $17.98

This coffee-table volume -- ill informed, sloppily executed and mean-spirited -- presents short evaluations of a rather bizarre selection of twentieth-century "opera" singers. It pays tribute to Kathleen Ferrier (who appeared in only two stage productions during her career), Marian Anderson (who sang in exactly one) and Mario Lanza (who appeared in none at all). Lotte Lenya makes it by virtue of her identification with Kurt Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper. Adelina Patti, only tangentially a twentieth-century figure, shows up, but Mattia Battistini does not. Leonie Rysanek, Zinka Milanov, Magda Olivero, Renata Scotto and Claudia Muzio fail to make the cut; there are no Italian mezzos other than Bartoli, no Russians save Chaliapin and Mark Reizen.

The selection could be justified if Boyden could make a case for his singers, but his capsule bios show little discernment or insight, reading like overheard intermission chatter -- of a rather low order, at that. Cattiness abounds. Entries on Luisa Tetrazzini and Montserrat Caballe lead off with titters on the subject of their girth, and one finds out more about Ezio Pinza as a swordsman than as a singer. Boyden slavers over the vocal declines of Giuseppe di Stefano and Pasquale Amato, comparing the latter to Norma Desmond. One learns that Giovanni Martinelli possessed "one of the least attractive voices to warrant the flattery of universal acclaim"; that Sherrill Milnes's career was built on "the performance of opera as oratorio," and that Lawrence Tibbett's "self-assurance gave even his finest work a shallow ring." It makes one wonder why these ...