Customer Reviews

Sign-Off for the Old Met: The Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts, 1950-1966

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Those operaphiles who know Jackson's first volume, "Saturday Afternoons at the Old Met", have been waiting a number of years for this sequel. The format and style remain the same. One problem faced by Jackson in the sequel was the sheer magnitude of his task. In the earlier book many of the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts between 1931 (they began Christmas Day 1931) and 1950 were not preserved. Virtually all of the broadcasts (and then some) between 1950 and 1966, the years covered by this book, are preserved. Naturally, Jackson notes the highlights, those afternoons that live in the memories of those who heard them, but he also fairly notes those that, for whatever reason, fell short of the Gold Standard. He also shows the slow decline of the Met that began when true operatic giants like Bjoerling, Melchior, Flagstad, Bodanzky, and so forth left either no replacements or the replacements were in the hand (or, rather, throats) of a select few, such as Richard Tucker who upheld the standard for many years before his death. Mr Jackson not only provides an excellent narrative but also an appendix listing broadcast dates and casts. Highly recommended. The only sour note comes from the Metropolitan Opera itself whose Brownshirts work to prevent the legitimate sale of these out-of-copyright treasures except those that the Met sells at outrageous prices. Recordings of these are available in Europe and are well worth the effort to read Jackson's words and hear the actual performance.

Mr. Jackson's three-book series on the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts have opened a whole new world to me in my passion for opera. I use all three of them for reference, and in the instances where he praises and raves about a particular broadcast, I've sought it out via Sirius broadcasts, or have actually been able to get my hands on the broadcast via other means. It is Mr. Jackson's books that have spawned my passion, which have resulted in my owning over one hundred and fifty Met broadcasts spanning the years 1940 through 2009. I do not always agree with Mr. Jackson's opinions about a particular singer's performance on a particular afternoon, but his opinions always have stimulated my interest. I owe him much. It has been his wonderful books on the Met broadcasts that made me a man on a mission: I simply HAD to hear what he was talking about. As a result, I've been able to hear three broadcasts of Licia Albanese's Butterfly (a role she never recorded commercially), multitudes of Zinka Milanov's broadcast roles (some of which SHE never recorded commercially), and the list goes on and on and on. These Jackson books have set me on the road to building a Met broadcast library-----and I always use his books as a reference. Again I repeat: I do not always share his opinions, but many times I do. He's a master and a scholar. I also admire the fact that he never bashes any artist. He's a complete gentleman in his evaluations of the broadcasts, and I admire him tremendously for stimulating in me such an interest and passion that was so much part of the Metropolitan Opera in the 1940's through the 1970's. These three books must have taken him years to put together, and I am in awe over what he has accomplished. Anyone who has spent as many years with the Met broadcasts as I have should be without any of these three books. They are truly treasures beyond measure.