To Split or Not to Split

I’m not entirely sure why Wikipedia isn’t considered a quotable source of information in the academic world. As a refugee from that world, I find the idea of a Universal Repository of Knowledge very appealing, even when it’s overseen by a bunch of crotchety people who have made themselves the de facto arbiters of that knowledge. (Click on the View History tab of the next article you read to see just how pathologically crotchety these people are. It almost makesRead more
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The Beverly Sills Phenomenon (II)

The first section of this article showed how Beverly Sills was by far, in America, the most famous American opera singer of her generation.  She was, however, completely unsuccessful in imposing herself on the international operatic public. I recall an Italian friend asking me in 1984 about a record made by some strange American soprano who sang all kinds of weird cadenzas and ornaments. I knew he meant Sills’ Bellini and Donizetti arias record, which was a commonplace among AmericanRead more
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The Beverly Sills Phenomenon (I)

If you grew up loving opera in the United States in the 1970s, your American diva of the period was – without question – soprano Beverly Sills. You read her “self portrait” Bubbles, you collected her recordings, you watched her on television, and you heard her sing live. She performed extensively in the American hinterlands, so you didn’t have to live in New York to see her onstage. Sills was a late 1970s phenomenon, and the most phenomenal thing aboutRead more