Leonard Warren: American Baritone

by Mary Jane Phillips-Matz

Overview

(Amadeus). The great baritone Leonard Warren was history's most notable interpreter of Verdi, making his mark in the title roles of Rigoletto , Macbeth and Simon Boccanegra . Warren's dramatic death over 40 years ago is famous: he collapsed and died onstage at the Met on March 4, 1960 in a performance as Carlo in La forza del destino . In this definitive biography, Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, author of an acclaimed biography of Giuseppe Verdi, offers an intimate portrait of a beloved opera star, based on hundreds of interviews. More than 100 rare photographs capture Warren in his great roles as well as in private moments. HARDCOVER.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781574670530
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	03/01/2003
Series:	Amadeus , #13
Pages:	520
Product dimensions:	6.38(w) x 9.29(h) x 1.61(d)

About the Author

Mary Jane Phillips-Matz is the author of Verdi: A Biography, Rosa Ponselle, American Diva, and other books about opera. A contributor to Opera News, Opera Quarterly, BBC Music Magazine and many other publications, she is also a cofounder and executive board member of the American Institute for Verdi Studies at New York University. For Verdi: A Biography, she won the Royal Philharmonic Society Award and the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award. She lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

To many opera lovers, Leonard Warren was the greatest baritone of the 20th century. The Bronx-born son of Russian immigrants had extraordinary flexibility and control of dynamics, and the great Verdi roles--Rigoletto, Scarpia, Amonasro, Iago--seemed to have been written for his big, powerful voice. This exhaustive, occasionally repetitive biography appears in time for the 40th anniversary of the singer's dramatic death, onstage during a performance of La forza del destino at New York City's Metropolitan Opera. Phillips-Matz, a frequent contributor to Opera News and Opera Quarterly and the Royal Philharmonic Society Award-winning author of Verdi (Oxford Univ., 1993), provides a wealth of detail about the singer's personal and professional life along with valuable supplemental materials. The Leonard Warren Foundation is releasing a commemorative CD set in conjunction with the publication of this book, which should find a place on the shelves of academic and large public libraries.--Kate McCaffrey, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

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