The American Opera Singer: The Lives and Adventures of America's Great Singers in Opera and Concert from 1825 to the Present - Hardcover

Music critic Davis chronicles the extraordinary lives and adventures of Maria Callas, Beverly Sills, Richard Tucker, Leontyne Price, Marilyn Horne, Lawrence Tibbett, and the other colorful personalities that have emerged during the history of American opera and concert singing. RCA Red Seal's The American Opera Singer is intended to serve as a companion to the text. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

oday, opera has never been more popular, and one reason for this is, no doubt, that American opera singers are fixtures on every leading opera stage throughout the world.  In this lively and engrossing account, Peter G. Davis, music critic for New York magazine and a leading opera authority, tells the story of how these plucky, resilient and supremely talented American singers have transformed this venerable European-born art form and made it their own.

Starting with opera's arrival in America in the early nineteenth century, Davis shows how American singers grew in sophistication and stature along with the country.  From the nineteenth-century pioneers who crashed the gates of Europe's elite opera circles, to the glamorous singers of the early twentieth century who were also Hollywood stars and publicity magnets, to the highly professional singers since World War II who not only have gained European acceptance but now dominate the industry, this lively and highly read