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Well, bless her heart. I disagreed fundamentally about a few of her remarks on the Caruso recordings (her dismissal of the 1904 "una furtive lagrima" missed the point altogether; as John Steane appreciated, he was singing in an older style probably very appropriate to the music, "holding the moment")- but her book was very valuable, and i refer to her pitching of the Caruso records very often.

Thanks for the information. And I met Martinelli at about the same time the picture was taken (I presume, by his looks) when he was in Seattle.

Nat wrote:Well, bless her heart. I disagreed fundamentally about a few of her remarks on the Caruso recordings (her dismissal of the 1904 "una furtive lagrima" missed the point altogether; as John Steane appreciated, he was singing in an older style probably very appropriate to the music, "holding the moment")- but her book was very valuable, and i refer to her pitching of the Caruso records very often.

Thanks for the information. And I met Martinelli at about the same time the picture was taken (I presume, by his looks) when he was in Seattle.

1967? Seattle Opera House?

I wasn't there, but that's amazing if you were.

I was there - and it was amazing. I'd heard a lot of his records of course - and he still sounded like Martinelli. He did a lecture the day before where he talked about the dying art of declamation, and declaimed a good deal of the death of Otello and the "Esultate" for us. And that sounded recognizably like the old voice, too. I am so grateful to have been there, and will remember it till I die. So here I am, in 2011, having heard a tenor who same at the Met when Caruso was alive; and what a tenor!

Neato.

There weren't many of the 'old guard' still performing by then, so that was an opportunity well taken.