Linda Riebel
Irene Dalis was an opera star in the 20th century, performing leading roles alongside Placido Domingo, Leontyne Price, Franco Corelli, Birgit Nilsson, and Jussi Björling at the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, San Francisco, Bayreuth, and other major houses. In this authorized biography of a remarkable woman, we learn about her international career and the successful opera company she started in her hometown, San Jose, California. Filled with fascinating backstage anecdotes, stories of luck and perseverance, some of the most ecstatic performance reviews ever written, and sketches of the great impresarios Rudolf Bing, Wieland Wagner, Kurt Herbert Adler, and Lotfi Mansouri, Irene Dalis: Diva, Impresaria, Legend is also the story of talented young singers who come to San Jose to launch their careers. The candid and sometimes humorous account is generously illustrated with photographs of Miss Dalis’s family, early career, stardom in America and Europe, and the memorable opera productions staged by Opera San Jose over the last 40 years. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews with Irene Dalis, conductors, stage directors, former Opera San Jose resident artists, board members, orchestra members, and patrons, the book is also a celebration of something unique in America: an opera company that hires talented emerging singers for years at a time, forming a stable ensemble of singers that the audience grows to know and love in their wildly varying roles. This is also a must-read for arts administrators, as an inspiring story of making a vision into a reality, overcoming obstacles, attracting the right people, and keeping one’s institution in the black. This new edition covers the last 10 years: Irene Dalis passes, Opera San Jose survives the pandemic and enters a thriving new era, premieres the first opera of a world-famous young music prodigy, welcomes brilliant new artists, and creates a high-tech digital studio. With bonus chapters on opera lore, hilarious onstage bloopers, and other guilty pleasures. 346 pages. Includes appendix, discography, complete lists of Opera San Jose productions and resident artists, sources, and index.
