Twenty years ago this week — May 25, 1981— Rosa Ponselle died in her beloved home, Villa Pace, in Greenspring Valley. The soprano had outlived just about all her fellow stars of the “Golden Age” at ...

To get the Fourth of July off to a stirring start, I thought you would enjoy this blast from the past, which I only just discovered — the venerable Rosa Ponselle singing our national anthem. (My ...

Arias and songs by Verdi, Spontini, Massenet, Bellini, Schubert, Tosti; others (Romophone). Alan Blyth recently referred to the Ponselle-Martinelli recording of the finale of “Aida,” as “one of the ...

In the flowing white robes of a Druid priestess, Rosa Ponselle, soprano of the Metropolitan Opera, waited in a dressing room of London Covent Garden last week. She tapped her foot, tried her voice, ...

FOR many years, it has been fashionable to deplore the absence of “Norma” from the Metropolitan repertoire. There has developed a tradition, fostered by those who (1) never heard the opera and (2) ...

On a golf course at Lake Placid, N. Y., last week, Rosa Melba Ponselle laughed and chattered from the high spirits of her summer out-of-doors. Playing the round with her, was her singing coach, Romano ...