Mario! Mario! On January 13, Opera News presents a tribute to Hollywood's best-loved tenor at Alice Tully Hall. RONALD BOWERS recalls Mario Lanza's brief but blazing career.

The classical-music press never took Mario Lanza all that seriously, and whether he could have forged a legitimate career in opera is arguable. But with starring roles in eight films, and through dozens of recordings, he became a major pop-culture phenomenon of the 1950s.

With his beefy, barrel-chested musculature, he was widely admired by the era's Alpha Males, but his greatest appeal was to the female audience. One admirer, Queen Elizabeth II, greeted him after a Royal Command performance with, "Mr. Lanza, I never knew that human lungs could produce such volume."

Lanza's legacy is his singing in those eight films, an astonishing output of recordings that are constantly being reissued, and a legion of loyal fans. A recent reminder appeared on HBO's The Sopranos. The Mafioso Tony (James Gandolfini) arrives at the retirement home to visit his mother (Nancy Marchand), carrying a handful of CDs, and explains to the administrator: "These are some CDs for my mother--you know, Mario Lanza--she loves the old-timers."

Lanza was born Alfred Arnold Cocozza into a working-class family in South Philadelphia in 1921, the same year that Caruso died. His mother, a seamstress, managed to pay for his singing lessons with Irene Williams, who in 1942 introduced Freddie, as he was then called, to concert manager William K. Huff. Huff arranged an audition with Serge Koussevitzky, music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and music director of the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood. Koussevitzky was sufficiently impressed to offer the young tenor a scholarship at Tanglewood, and on August 7, 1942, he made his debut as Fenton in Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor. Around this time, he also changed his name to Mario Lanza, derived from his mother's surname.

Columbia Concerts offered a contract, but that was precluded by his induction into the U.S. Army, on January 5, 1943. Once his singing talent was discovered, he became a member of the Army's Special Services and appeared with that group onstage in On the Beam and Moss Hart's Winged Victory. While on tour with the latter show, he failed an audition for Warner Bros. Pictures, but he later secured a recording contract with RCA Victor.

Following his Army discharge in 1945, Lanza appeared on the radio, made test records for RCA and studied with Enrico Rosati, a teacher of Beniamino Gigli. Columbia Concerts finally signed him, and from July 1947 to May 1948, he toured with the Bel Canto Trio, made up of Lanza, soprano Frances Yeend and bass-baritone George London. Also during the late '40s, Lanza sang Pinkerton in two performances of Madama Butterfly with New Orleans Opera.

The turning point of his career came in August 1947, with a performance at the Hollywood Bowl's "Symphonies under the Stars" series. Ida Koverman, once Herbert Hoover's California campaign secretary, who had been executive secretary to MGM's general manager Louis B. Mayer since 1929, was a serious music-lover and member of the board of the Hollywood Bowl. Koverman urged Mayer to attend the concerts, and he did so. "To Louis," wrote columnist Hedda Hopper, "that tenor sounded like a symphony orchestra for cash registers." The result was a seven-year contract starting at $750 a week, escalating to $100,000 per picture and allowing Lanza six months each year to perform concert tours and make recordings. (Lanza was, in fact, Mayer's last major discovery.)