Rosa Ponselle & Shirley Verrett
Rosa Ponselle & Shirley Verrett Rosa Ponselle When I began investigating Rosa Ponselle’s voice I proceeded from the assertion, raised by Professor Spears, that some people always considered Ponselle to be a mezzo-soprano rather than a dramatic soprano. I discovered through my investigation of her 1937 performance of Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera, Nimbus Records Ponselle , Volumes 1&2, RCA Victor’s Rosa Ponselle , and The Radio Years that, in my opinion, this was resoundingly not the case. Ponselle’s interview with Jerome Hines on singing technique, as well as some of my own observations, however, offer a suggestion of how this might have seemed the case. Reviews from the time support these claims. I actually began my investigation with the 1937 Carmen . Unfortunately this was the only full role I could find, a pity given my ultimate conclusion that Ponselle was truly a soprano, not a mezzo. Two of Carmen’s key pieces, howeve