Grand Opera: The Story of the Met by Charles Affron, Mirella Jona Affron

publicists; and Lawrence Tibbett, propelled from secondary roles to instant stardom by audience acclaim. 27
Rosa Ponselle
     
    Opposite Caruso at the Met’s first performance of Verdi’s La Forza del destino was a twenty-one year old who had never had a voice lesson, let alone sung on an operatic stage. Ponselle had begun as a song plugger, had played piano at the nickelodeon, and, most recently, had been one of Those Tailored Italian Girls, a sister act on the vaudeville circuit. Caruso heard her in her manager’s office and brought her to the attention of the Met. Verdi roles had recently fallen to Claudia Muzio, a spinto even younger than Ponselle. But for the dramatic soprano role of the Forza Leonora, Gatti took a chance on the untested Ponselle. Reviewers acknowledged both her inexperience and her “vocal gold.” In 1918–19, Ponselle was entrusted with two more premieres, Carl Maria von Weber’s Oberon and Joseph Breil’s The Legend . In subsequent seasons, there followed numerous Gioconda s and Cavalleria s and a fair share of rarities. “Caruso in petticoats” would be the Met’s first Elisabetta (Don Carlo), its first Luisa Miller. In 1927, Gatti revived Norma for her; Bellini’s opera had not been heard for more than three decades. The title role calls for creamy legato (sung without separation between successive notes), emphatic recitative, and lyric and dramatic coloratura, all executed within the refined parameters of bel canto. Ponselle’s rendition of “Casta diva” was caught in the studio of the Victor Talking Machine Company. The forceful resolve of therecitative, the rapture of the prayer, and the agitation of the cabaletta are plied without apparent effort. Through a broad dynamic range, the characteristically dark Ponselle voice remains ideally equalized here and in the duet “Mira, o Norma,” the other excerpt she recorded with her stage Adalgisa, Marion Telva. At its revival in 1928 with the identical cast, Downes proclaimed that this edition of Norma “would make history in any opera house” ( Times, Nov. 8). Ponselle had brought a work of bel canto genius into the repertoire at last and for good. The kid from Meriden, Connecticut, set the bar for all future Normas. 28
     
    FIGURE 17. Rosa Ponselle as Norma, 1927 (Herman Mishkin; courtesy Metropolitan Opera Archives)
     
     
Marion Talley
     
    The Times first mentioned Talley (“Singer of 16 a Prodigy”) on November 9, 1922, three years and more before her Metropolitan debut. She had auditioned for Kahn, Gatti, and Bodanzky. They encouraged her to continue her studies—and the construction of a star, born and raised in Missouri and American as apple pie, had begun. Two years later, Kahn, voicing his “high expectations,” confirmed that Talley had been asked to prepare two roles ( Times, April 2, 1924). She was just seventeen. By July, she was off for coaching in Italy. In October 1925, her debut was featured in the prospectus of the upcoming season: “She will be heard for the first time by the public as a prima donna, though it was as a child in short dresses that she sang an audition just three years ago.” Gatti wrote to Kahn in uncharacteristically effusive terms: “I would be very much surprised if this young singer who possesses all the qualities to succeed brilliantly should not make a deep impression. . . . I hope that this time we have found a good ace who will make happy also all the nationalistic elements.” The press, meanwhile, had seized on the story of the shy teenager whose father had worked seven days a week for eighteen years as a telegraph operator with the Missouri Pacific Railroad.
    As the debut approached, the hype grew more intense. Two hundred Missourians had hired a train to carry them to New York for Talley’s Gilda in Rigoletto; there would be a reception on the Metropolitan stage; all unsubscribed seats for the February 17, 1926, performance had been snatched up; all of America would be hearing