Rosa
Ponselle: A Centenary Biography by James A
Drake
A
review by Vicki
Kondelik
The story is, no doubt,
familiar to many opera lovers: a 21-year-old soprano, just out of
vaudeville and with no previous experience in opera, makes her
debut at the Met opposite Caruso and becomes an overnight
sensation. The Cinderella story of Rosa Ponselle's debut has
become operatic legend. But, as James A Drake's wonderful
biography shows, the real story, as was the case with so much
about Ponselle's life and career, was much more complex.
This is not Drake's first
biography of Ponselle; he was the author of Ponselle's
ghostwritten autobiography, Ponselle: A Singer's Life, published
in 1982, shortly after her death. That book was originally going
to be published as a biography by Drake, but the publisher decided
it would sell better as an autobiography, so Drake rewrote it in
the first person. When the first book was published, Ponselle's
legal representatives asked Drake to suppress certain material
relating to her personal life. That material, as well as several
of the interviews that Drake conducted while researching the first
biography, is included here. And Drake's love for his subject
clearly shows through.
Rosa Ponselle probably needs
no introduction here, but, for readers who may be unfamiliar with
her life, here is a brief summary. She was born Rose Ponzillo in
Meriden, Connecticut, in 1897, to a family of Italian immigrants
who came from a village near Naples. (Her brother Tony always
referred to her as Rose, in his interview with Drake.) During her
teenage years, she played the piano and sang at movie theaters in
Meriden and nearby towns. In 1915, she and her older sister
Carmela begin a career in vaudeville; their sister act, which was
called 'Those Tailored Italian Girls', was moderately successful.
Rosa's big break came in 1918, when, as mentioned above, she
debuted at the Met in La forza del destino, opposite Caruso; the
book contains various versions of how this came about. In the next
few years, she went on to become one of the Met's foremost stars.
Probably her crowning achievement was her Norma, in which role she
debuted in 1927. Many consider her to be one of the greatest
sopranos of the 20th century, if not the very
greatest.
Her career was, however, an
unusual one in many ways. She had a relatively small repertoire:
only 23 roles, 7 of which were in operas by Verdi. Quite
surprisingly, she never sang an opera by Puccini, although, to
judge by her recordings, she would have been an excellent Puccini
singer. Ponselle's career was also largely confined to the
Metropolitan Opera Company. Except for three seasons at Covent
Garden and one at the Maggio Musicale in Florence, she never
appeared with any other company. She had plenty of offers from all
over the world, but, for various reasons, she declined them. And
her career is also remarkable for its abrupt end. In 1930,
Ponselle added Violetta to her repertoire. She sang it first at
Covent Garden, and received rave reviews. But, when she sang the
role in New York, the critics were less than enthusiastic.
(Although, to judge from her surviving Met broadcast of the role,
it is hard, at least for me, to understand why. Hers is one of the
most moving performances of Violetta that I have heard.) Then, in
1935, she sang her last new role: a highly controversial Carmen.
According to one of the many legends about Ponselle, the critics'
negative reaction to her Carmen led to the end of her career. But,
as was the case with her debut, the truth is more complex. In
1936, she married Carle A. Jackson, the son of the mayor of
Baltimore, who was not an opera lover. Her wish to spend more time
with her husband, as well as a desire for a Hollywood career
(which came to nothing), and her struggles with the Met management
all led to her retirement from opera in 1937, and from concert
appearances in 1939. Her career lasted only eleven years
altogether. Afterwards, she lived in retirement at her home, Villa
Pace, near Baltimore. Her marriage was not happy - she and Jackson
had very little in common - and she was divorced in 1951. Later,
Ponselle became the artistic director of the Baltimore Civic
Opera, and she helped many young singers, some of whom went on to
become famous. She died in 1981.
Ponselle as Fiora in
Montemezzi's L'Amore dei Tre Re, one of her favorite
roles
From the Charles
Mintzer Collection
This book is, quite simply,
one of the best operatic biographies I have ever read. What makes
it so great is its unusual format. This is not a traditional
biography, with events told chronologically (for that, read Mary
Jane Phillips-Matz's Rosa Ponselle: American Diva, published
around the same time as Drake's book). Instead, each of Drake's
nine chapters is divided into four sections. First, there is a
brief section introducing the chapter's topic. The next section is
'The Interview', which consists of various interviews of Ponselle
by Drake and others, edited together to make one interview on a
particular period of Ponselle's career. Next comes
'Recollections', a narrative by a friend, colleague, or associate,
based on these people's interviews with Drake. The people whose
recollections of Ponselle are included here are: her brother Tony,
her childhood friend (who remained a friend throughout her life)
Lena Tamborini, her secretary Edith Prilik, her manager Libbie
Miller, her colleague Nina Morgana, and her husband Carle A.
Jackson. Finally, there is 'The Written Record', which is drawn
from reviews, correspondence by Ponselle and her associates,
contracts, and other written documentation. The book's unusual
format allows us to see Ponselle from many different points of
view. Often Ponselle, her associates, and the written record will
all contradict each other, and it is left to the reader to decide
what the truth about a particular event is. (Although the 'Written
Record' section is probably the closest to the truth.)
Take the story of her Met
debut as an example: the often-told Cinderella story, in which
Ponselle became an overnight celebrity and received nothing but
rave reviews from the critics, is actually a legend, but one
which, according to her secretary Edith Prilik, Ponselle came to
believe herself. Her debut was, without a doubt, quite successful,
but her reviews, although quite favorable, were hardly raves. What
comes through in the reviews quoted in the 'Written Record'
section is that the critics saw a lot of potential in her voice,
but did not yet consider her a great singer. They realized that
she had much work ahead of her. And she did, of course, work very
hard in the next few years. Ponselle had come to the Met without a
repertoire, so she had to work on building one. Some of her early
roles were more successful than others, and she received some
quite negative reviews early in her career. It was not until a few
years after her debut that she really came to be considered one of
the greatest stars of the Met.
Also, when talking about her
debut at the Met, Ponselle constantly downplays the role of
William Thorner, who was her manager early in her career. Ponselle
clearly came to hate Thorner, with whom she became involved in a
lawsuit much later. In her interview, Ponselle says Thorner never
taught her a thing, and her only voice teacher was her mentor,
Romano Romani. But it is clear, both from Prilik's account and the
'Written Record', that Thorner gave voice lessons to Ponselle and
her sister Carmela. Both Thorner and Romani had a role in bringing
Ponselle to the attention of Caruso and Gatti-Casazza, which led
to auditions at the Met for both sisters. Carmela, who comes
across as rather a pathetic figure in this book, was not hired at
first, although she did eventually come to have a career at the
Met, but with nothing like her sister's success.
It is also very interesting to
see the multiple points of view in regard to Ponselle's
controversial Carmen. Ponselle herself said that she received only
one bad review in the role: from Olin Downes of the New York
Times, who was angry with Ponselle and her manager, Libbie Miller,
at the time, because Ponselle refused to sing for a low fee in a
concert series he was giving. In an earlier chapter, Ponselle had
said Carmen was one of her best roles. But, as Miller says in her
recollection, and as the reviews quoted in 'The Written Record'
bear out, Downes's review was not the only bad one; many of the
critics had negative things to say about her Carmen. Some of the
reviews, even when not completely negative, said that Carmen was
not the right role for her voice.
Ponselle, a print inscribed
to tyhe great dramatic soprano, Rosa Raisa
From the Charles
Mintzer Collection
Seeing these events, and many
others in Ponselle's career, from several different points of
view, is a richly rewarding experience for the reader. Ponselle is
shown to be a very complex person. Her sense of humor comes
through very well in all her interviews. To give only one example:
when asked about Joseph Breil's The Legend, an opera in which she
had sung the world premiere early in her career, and which was
universally panned by the critics, she replies, 'Around here,
dinner is served at seven o'clock. Don't ruin it.' She is also
completely honest about her colleagues--sometimes devastatingly
so. There were some colleagues for whom she had nothing but
praise: Muzio, Rethberg, Pertile, Martinelli (usually), and, above
all, Caruso, whom she considered by far the greatest of all
tenors. But she has very harsh words to say about Lauri-Volpi,
Irene Minghini-Cattaneo, and Maria Müller (whom she calls
'the washerwoman'), to name only a few. When talking about her
colleagues, she holds absolutely nothing back.
Ponselle's nervousness and
insecurity can be seen as well; for example, there is a very
interesting discussion of her fear of the high C. By her own
account, this came about during a performance of Aida which she
gave when she was ill; she was unable to hold the exposed high C
in 'O patria mia' for very long. This experience made her afraid
of that note. At the time, she was in her second season at the Met
and did not know about transposition; later, she transposed that
section. (In fact, she made frequent transpositions in other roles
as well.) But she did not want it to be widely known that she made
these transpositions; that was part of her
perfectionism.
Although he is very
sympathetic to her as a person, Drake also lets us see the
unpleasant sides of Ponselle's character. She could be very greedy
for money; one of the main reasons nothing came of her wish for a
Hollywood career is that she asked for an unrealistically high
fee. And she was quick to turn against her closest associates,
Edith Prilik and Libbie Miller, when she thought they were
disloyal to her because they disapproved of the way Carle Jackson
was trying to run her life and career. She later reconciled with
Prilik, although things were never the same between them, but she
never forgave Miller. (Interestingly enough, Prilik and Miller
disliked each other; there certainly seems to have been jealousy
on both sides.) But, by showing us these faults, Drake makes
Ponselle seem all the more human.
The book includes a beautiful
photographic section with 60 pictures. There is a bibliography of
articles about Ponselle and books where she is discussed, a
thoroughly researched performance chronology, which includes casts
(for all the major roles) of all of Ponselle's operatic
performances, a list of her repertoire, and a complete discography
which also lists all her radio broadcasts, even the ones that were
not preserved. These are all excellent resources, and make the
book even more valuable. My only complaint is in regard to the
endnotes: in some chapters, the numbers given in the text do not
correspond to the numbers in the 'Notes' section. For example, in
chapter 5, the number 87 (the last one given in the text of that
chapter) corresponds to number 91 in the 'Notes' section. This can
be confusing for the reader at times. But, in such a wonderful
biography, this is really only a minor complaint, although I do
think readers should be aware of it. I highly recommend the book
to all opera lovers.
Drake, James A.
Rosa
Ponselle: A Centenary Biography.
James M. Alfonte, Photographic Editor. Chronology of Performances
by Thomas G. Kaufman. Bibliography by Andrew Farkas. Discography
by Bill Park. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1997. ISBN
1-57467-019-0. $39.95 U.S.
Vicki
Kondelik was born in 1970 and has
been an opera-lover since the age of eight, when she watched a Met
telecast of Tosca with Shirley Verrett. She is a graduate of
Butler University (BA, 1992) and the University of Michigan (MILS,
1994), and currently works at the Graduate Library of the
University of Michigan. She is a collector of historic vocal
recordings, and her current project is a biography of Meta
Seinemeyer. Her article on Seinemeyer was published in the
December 2002 issue of The Record Collector. Readers are invited
to visit her website on Seinemeyer at www.seinemeyer.com.
