Mario Lanza: Tenor in Exile

(Amadeus). More than 40 years after his premature death, the mystique of Mario Lanza continues. He remains a legendary figure, a crossover icon embraced and remembered by an entire generation for bridging the gap between popular and classical music, the acknowledged inspiration of today's Three Tenors. Bessette tells his story with a novelist's eye for the inherent tragedy of Lanza's brief life, the contradictory facets of his personality, his passion for life, and his self-destructiveness. HARDCOVER.

Almost forty years after his premature death, the mystique of Mario Lanza continues. He remains a legendary figure, a crossover icon embraced and remembered by an entire generation for bridging the gap between popular and classical music. The acknowledged inspiration of today's Three Tenors, Lanza introduced the operatic and Neapolitan repertoire to a wide and adoring audience, with--as José Carreras put it--a "glorious, ringing tenor, that . . . was his and his alone."

He was born Alfred Arnold Cocozza in South Philadelphia, where his youth foreshadowed the promise and the problems of his brief life. Undisciplined and self-indulgent, he was spoiled by adoring parents--and set apart by the natural gift of his voice. His musical training was sporadic but sufficient: he sang for Serge Koussevitzky at the age of nineteen, and the notoriously demanding conductor immediately arranged for the young Italian American to sing at Tanglewood. Having spent World War II as "the Caruso of the Air Force," touring U.S. bases and entertaining less fortunate soldiers, he next married the pretty little sister of a friend and embarked on a concertizing career--as Mario Lanza, a masculinized version of his mother's name. The prestigious Red Seal division of RCA Victor signed him up soon after, but his big break came when he was engaged to fill in for Tagliavini at a Hollywood Bowl Concert on 28 August 1947. An MGM film contract--and meteoric stardom--followed.

Lanza's film career peaked early with The Great Caruso, and his record royalties approached $1 million per year. But success did not bring happiness. His weight continued to swing with his moods, and although he doted on his four children, his marriage was as stormy as his relations with studio executives and his co-stars. A strong contender for the title of the most truculent and demanding star in cinematic history, Lanza quickly wore out his welcome in Hollywood. The tenor was dropped from The Student Prince (although it is his voice that fills the film's soundtrack); he went to Warner Bros. for the single film Serenade, then in 1957 moved with his family to Italy, where he made his last two films. He died in Rome at the age of thirty-eight.

Roland Bessette's research into Lanza's career includes recollections by fellow performers and documentation of business transactions that show how badly Lanza was served by many of his advisors. More important, Bessette tells the story with a novelist's eye for the inherent tragedy of the singer's life, recounting unblinkingly the contradictory facets of his personality, the generosity and the boorishness, the passion for life and the self-destructive bouts with alcohol. Above all, he recognizes in Lanza one of history's great natural voices, unequaled in its power and immediacy, and captured in recordings that continue to thrill listeners today.

Publishers Weekly

Born in 1921 to an idle war veteran and the disillusioned daughter of an Italian shopkeeper, Alfred Arnold Cocozza seemed an unlikely candidate for greatness. But in his family's crowded South Philadelphia apartment, the influence of his father's opera records combined with his own exceptional voice ("He was fond of simply vaulting, from silence, to a ringing and sustained high C") to turn the unruly boy into the most popular tenor of his day--Mario Lanza. After a few years of vocal training, a miserable stint as a military entertainer during WWII and some success as a concert and radio singer, Lanza discovered his best medium in Hollywood. In film, he found an escape from his paralyzing stage fright and a vehicle for his dark good looks. At the apex of his career, he played the legendary tenor of the century in The Great Caruso and introduced millions to the beauty of opera (Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti all credit Lanza as an early influence). But his career soon began to spiral downward as his indolence (he never bothered to learn sight-reading, limiting his repertoire) and shocking crudeness conspired with more prosaic Hollywood vices (notably womanizing, alcoholism and eating disorders) to alienate him from the Metropolitan Opera and MGM. Bessette, a lawyer and Lanza fan, does an admirable job of unearthing a great store of anecdotes and opinions about the controversial singer. 50 b&w photos. (Feb.)