Recovering the Forgotten Singer, 1: Florence Quartararo

Recovering the Forgotten Singer is Operapost’s new series devoted to those artists once much admired and now rarely recalled. Some were stars in their time; others left their mark all too fleetingly. Their recorded legacy calls on us to remember them here.

We begin with Florence Quartararo, born in California in 1922.

The young Quartararo’s first big break came in 1945 when Bing Crosby invited her to appear on his Kraft Music Hall radio program. It was, however, a classical venue, a concert conducted by the renowned Otto Klemperer, that launched her career. A Metropolitan Opera administrator who happened to be in the audience was impressed enough to arrange an audition with Bruno Walter. Walter, in turn, recommended her to Met General Manager Edward Johnson.

In January 1946, barely a year later, Quartararo made her debut on Broadway and 39^th Street. Arturo Toscanini sought to engage her for his 1947 NBC broadcast of Otello. But the Met refused to release her from an arduous rehearsal schedule. As a consequence, we have not Quartararo’s recording of Desdemona but that of the uninspired Herva Nelli.  

The regard in which the soprano was held by the era’s leading conductors ought to have been prelude to an important career. Such was not the case. In four seasons with the company, the Metropolitan cast her sparingly, that is in a meager thirty-four complete opera performances, sometimes as replacement for an indisposed artist, or as one of the anonymous Parsifal Flowermaidens.

Quartararo’s debut as Micaela in Carmen was relegated to a student performance. The reviewer dispatched by the New York Times opined “she may be the find of the season... She has a voice of size, range and true lyric quality.” Many of her subsequent notices were equally dithyrambic. On tour in Chicago, her Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro earned encomiums from the Tribune’s famously exigent critic, Claudia Cassidy: “She sang superbly, with serenity and simplicity and the security that comes from having a wealth of resources in reserve. If that girl doesn't make opera sit up and take notice, I shall desist consulting my crystal ball.”

The Met did not “sit up and take notice.” It could afford its indifference. Quartararo’s repertoire was covered by established company stars Licia Albanese and Bidu Sayão in Verdi and Puccini, Zinka Milanov and Stella Roman in the heavier Italian parts, and in the Mozart roles, Eleanor Steber.

Fortunately, RCA Victor issued disks of arias and duets that preserve Florence Quartararo’s artistry and sound. Most cherished even today is her recording of “Care selve” from Handel’s Atalanta. Prodigious intonation and breath control sustain the love song’s long legato lines.

 

RCA, clearly interested in promoting Quartararo, recorded “Tacea la notte” including its cabaletta, from Act I of Il Trovatore, on a two-sided disk. In this aria Leonora recounts the thrill of her tryst with Manrico, the troubadour. Quartararo delivers the late bel canto phrases with lush tone and precision, and executes the cabaletta’s coloratura embellishments with ease.

 

Quartararo recorded the Act I Tosca duet with Ramón Vinay, another rising star of the mid-1940s. The tenor had just sung the title role of Otello with the NBC symphony, conducted by Toscanini. The Tosca excerpt was included in an anthology of great opera duets later issued by RCA. Here, Quartararo who, alas, never sang the role at the Met, captures the many moods of the Roman diva, her piety, jealousy, seductiveness, and passion.


 

In Spring 1949, Florence Quartararo’s final appearance at the Metropolitan Opera House was her one chance to sing “O mio babbino caro” to Lauretta’s beloved daddy, Gianni Schicchi. That season’s Schicchi was the company’s star bass, Italo Tajo; he was soon to be Quartararo’s husband. The birth of a daughter put an end to her career. She later recalled, Tajo “believed one singer in the family is enough.” Florence retired from the stage in 1953, at the age of just thirty-one. Her recordings, including her Kraft Music Hall arias and her Nedda in a complete Met performance of Pagliacci, can be found on Youtube.