The authority on Rosa Raisa is the superb biographer Charles B. Mintzer. If we are to accept the judgments of those who heard Raisa in person (and if we don't, we're substituting our judgment for their informed experience), then Rosa Ponselle (for whom I am a biographer twice), Alexander Kipnis (whom I interviewed extensively), Nina Morgana Zirato (whom I knew quite well), and Wilfrid Pelletier (whom I interviewed several times), all told me in tape-recorded interviews that onstage Rosa Raisa was the most exciting soprano in the repertoire she sang. Kipnis had heard Ponselle's Norma in London and Raisa's in the U.S., and said that both Normas were different but equal in emotional impact. Ponselle said that when she saw Raisa's Norma, it "scared the life out of me" because of the clarion high-C's that Raisa sang effortlessly. (When Ponselle recorded excerpts from Norma for the Victor Company in 1928, she sang high-C's in the studio. Onstage, however, she transposed them to B-flats.) As a person, according to Ponselle, Raisa was rather introverted, was very trusting, and was taken advantage of repeatedly in business matters. Ponselle insistently and consistently dismissed any comments that she was "greater" than Raisa. "Anybody who makes a statement like that," she said, "Never heard Rosa Raisa--and probably never heard me either. What they've heard is our old recordings, and Raisa's records, at least the ones I've heard, don't sound much like her at all." When I played Kipnis's comments about her and Raisa for Ponselle, she exclaimed, "Who is going to argue with this man who is a master of opera and lieder?"
As Rosa Ponselle's biographer, I can attest that she consistently and insistently dismissed any comments that she was "greater" than Rosa Raisa. "Anybody who makes a statement like that," she said, "Never heard Rosa Raisa--and probably never heard me either. What they've heard is our old recordings, and Raisa's records, at least the ones I've heard, don't sound much like her at all." When I played Alexander Kipnis's comments about her and Raisa for Ponselle (see below), she nodded emphatically and exclaimed, "Who is going to argue with this man who is a master of opera and lieder?"
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The authority on Rosa Raisa is the superb biographer Charles B. Mintzer. If we are to accept the judgments of those who heard Raisa in person (and if we don't, we're substituting our judgment for their informed experience), then Rosa Ponselle (for whom I am a biographer twice), Alexander Kipnis (whom I interviewed extensively), Nina Morgana Zirato (whom I knew quite well), and Wilfrid Pelletier (whom I interviewed several times), all told me in tape-recorded interviews that onstage Rosa Raisa was the most exciting soprano in the repertoire she sang. Kipnis had heard Ponselle's Norma in London and Raisa's in the U.S., and said that both Normas were different but equal in emotional impact. Ponselle said that when she saw Raisa's Norma, it "scared the life out of me" because of the clarion high-C's that Raisa sang effortlessly. (When Ponselle recorded excerpts from Norma for the Victor Company in 1928, she sang high-C's in the studio. Onstage, however, she transposed them to B-flats.) As a person, according to Ponselle, Raisa was rather introverted, was very trusting, and was taken advantage of repeatedly in business matters. Ponselle insistently and consistently dismissed any comments that she was "greater" than Raisa. "Anybody who makes a statement like that," she said, "Never heard Rosa Raisa--and probably never heard me either. What they've heard is our old recordings, and Raisa's records, at least the ones I've heard, don't sound much like her at all." When I played Kipnis's comments about her and Raisa for Ponselle, she exclaimed, "Who is going to argue with this man who is a master of opera and lieder?"
As Rosa Ponselle's biographer, I can attest that she consistently and insistently dismissed any comments that she was "greater" than Rosa Raisa. "Anybody who makes a statement like that," she said, "Never heard Rosa Raisa--and probably never heard me either. What they've heard is our old recordings, and Raisa's records, at least the ones I've heard, don't sound much like her at all." When I played Alexander Kipnis's comments about her and Raisa for Ponselle (see below), she nodded emphatically and exclaimed, "Who is going to argue with this man who is a master of opera and lieder?"
Jim Drake n