Lanza aficionado and broadcaster Lindsay Perigo has done his idol proud with his much-revised third edition of The One Tenor: A Salute to Mario Lanza, an unashamedly eclectic collection of essays, reviews, interviews, and even a sonnet. This is the first time the book has appeared in paperback form, and it’s been given a major makeover, with some eye-poppingly vivid colour photographs and an astute selection of striking black and white pics.
More importantly, its written content---most of it penned by the inimitable Linz himself---has been radically restructured, with the essays and articles now logically organized into four broad categories: Lanza the person and artist (“A Sense of Life”); reviews of selected recordings (“My God, Could That Man Sing”), reminiscences from colleagues and assorted tributes (“Fans, Friends, Family and Fellow-Artists”), and an extended interview with biographer Roland Bessette (“Controversy”). As I note in my preface to The One Tenor, the Bessette section is worth the price of the book alone, with Linz (an interviewer without peer in his native New Zealand) probing the lawyer-author at length regarding his contentious theory that Lanza suffered from undiagnosed Bipolar Disorder, and then responding good-humoredly with his own (eminently plausible) theory as to why the great tenor’s career was so erratic.
The book also boasts a magnificent new foreword from leading contemporary tenor Joseph Calleja, a dyed-in-the-wool Lanza enthusiast who, among other things, handily demolishes the myth that his idol’s voice was created in the recording studios. Other sterling additions include a postscript that includes an extraordinary 2015 assessment of Lanza by Sir Antonio Pappano, Music Director of the Royal Opera House; and (most gratifyingly to this writer!) up-to-the-minute reviews of all four Lanza CDs released by Sepia Records in 2015-2016. (Information about those CDs can be found at this site here, here, and here.)
Linz’s book is available now in both Kindle and paperback form, and in the few weeks since its publication late last month has already hit the #1 spot on Amazon’s “Hot new [book] releases” chart in opera. That’s great news for Linz—and great news for Lanza, whose rightful place among the operatic giants of the last century has never been more secure. As for the quality of the book itself, our own Dr. Lee Ann Cafferata (co-founder of this site) is right on the money when she observes that its "thoughtful, subjective, fast-paced and heartwarming [essays] . . . give us brilliance and calamity, sometimes on the same page."
Get yourself a copy today!
The book also boasts a magnificent new foreword from leading contemporary tenor Joseph Calleja, a dyed-in-the-wool Lanza enthusiast who, among other things, handily demolishes the myth that his idol’s voice was created in the recording studios. Other sterling additions include a postscript that includes an extraordinary 2015 assessment of Lanza by Sir Antonio Pappano, Music Director of the Royal Opera House; and (most gratifyingly to this writer!) up-to-the-minute reviews of all four Lanza CDs released by Sepia Records in 2015-2016. (Information about those CDs can be found at this site here, here, and here.)
Linz’s book is available now in both Kindle and paperback form, and in the few weeks since its publication late last month has already hit the #1 spot on Amazon’s “Hot new [book] releases” chart in opera. That’s great news for Linz—and great news for Lanza, whose rightful place among the operatic giants of the last century has never been more secure. As for the quality of the book itself, our own Dr. Lee Ann Cafferata (co-founder of this site) is right on the money when she observes that its "thoughtful, subjective, fast-paced and heartwarming [essays] . . . give us brilliance and calamity, sometimes on the same page."
Get yourself a copy today!
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