No other dramatic soprano in vocal history was able to match Rosa Ponselle's flexibility. Her runs, trills, scales, and fioratura were of a kind that one reads about, but never encounters.

When one listened to Rosa Ponselle, one heard all womanhood in her tones--the despair of TOSCA, the mother love of NORMA, the wild sexuality of CARMEN, the pathos of Rachel, the regality of GIOCONDA and the wanton hopeless love of Violetta. All these, and more, flowed in a never-ending stream of passion from this warm-hearted, intelligent woman. To this must be added--the absolute in vocal control.

The Ponselle voice was of enormous size--so large that at full volume, it almost hurt the ears with its brilliance and power. Liquid, molten, flowing gold is the best description one can give of this quality, and to this must be added an excitement, and a womanliness and richness, which can only be described as sexually stimulating.

Max de Schauensee, recalling a performance of LA JUIVE, which Rosa Ponselle sang with Caruso, said to her in later years, "The two voices seemed like two marble columns rising from the floor of the stage to the roof of the auditorium."

Rosa Ponselle gave the role of Violetta a dark, full-blooded warmth. Rich, sombre tones served marvelously to show her distress. Coloratura passages such as few dramatic sopranos dare undertake, won her a storm of applause.

Ida and Louise Cook said that upon hearing Rosa Ponselle's first NORMA at Covent Garden, they went home after the performance knowing in a vague sort of way, that they had heard, seen and felt the ultimate in vocal art!

Ezio Pinza once said that Rosa Ponselle was the last of the great dramatic sopranos. After her, there were only large lyrics.

Mario Basiola, a friend and colleague of Rosa Ponselle, recalling her singing, simply stated, "Essa sapeva cantare!"

Alfred Newman, a renowned London critic wrote of Rosa Ponselle's LA TRAVIATA that it transcended interpretive art and became creative art.

Bruno Zirato recalled that when Rosa Ponselle went backstage to greet Arturo Toscanini after one of his concert performances in New York City, the great maestro fell to his knees and said "voce degli angeli, how much I valued your artistry!" During Ponselle's singing career, Toscanini asked for Ponselle to sing under his direction. Ponselle maintained that she declined be- cause she feared Toscanini's notorious rages in his demands for perfection of all artists during rehearsals. Due to her ubiquitous nervousness prior to her performances, she feared that Maestro might unnerve her and she might not be able to perform at her best. Therefore, she continuously declined his invitation.

Claudia Muzio stated that there was only one soprano who could sing better than herself and that was--Rosa Ponselle!

Elvira Puccini, after the death of her husband, sent Rosa Ponselle Puccini's unfinished manuscript of an art song he had "dedicato alla bellissima voce di Rosa Ponselle." The manuscript was later stolen by a person who did secretarial work for her, who also absconded with many of her archives, selling them for personal profit to collectors.

Rosa Ponselle's voice was perfectly covered and even in scale from top to bottom. It is of a dark and exciting quality that belongs to the true dramatic soprano and is now apparently almost extinct.

When Lily Pons made her sensational Metropolitan Opera debut, Rosa Ponselle visited her backstage and said, "Lily Pons has knocked the "elle" out of Ponselle!" To this, Lily Pons replied, "but Pons is only half of Ponselle!"

Elizabeth Rethberg, a great Aida in her own right, said of Rosa Ponselle that there wasn't a singer on earth who could match Ponselle's "O terra addio" and that there never will be!

In Rosa Ponselle's l939 RCA recordings of A l'aime, si tu le voulais, Ave Maria (Schubert), The Nightingale and the Rose, and When I have sung my songs, she showed the deepest hues of the dark color that shaded Ponselle's voice in her final Met seasons. It was a factor that in no way affected the flowing power of the voice, the ease in portamenti, the long-breathed phrases and the other qualities that made up a typical Ponselle delivery.

Rosa Ponselle often recalled that when she sang the trill in the "Ernani involami" aria, Maestro Papi used to put down his baton, fold his arms and wait for her to hold the trill as long as she wanted; then unerringly bring in the orchestra with perfect timing when she ended.

Aida Favia Artsey best described Rosa Ponselle's voice: "In spite of its immaculate purity, it cannot help excite us with innate and irresistible sensuousness. How gorgeous it is, with no vibrato or any other blemish to mar its alabaster quality, and just enough oscillation to make it alive. She achieves that mol- ten roundness of tone by making the utmost use of her palatal resonance, while always directing a column of breath, to the head resonators in just the quantity required by the pitch, which in her case is perfect."

For Rosa Ponselle's London performance of LA TRAVIATA, it was difficult to believe that she was singing the role for the first time. Her Violetta was an alliance between first-class singing and first-class intelligence. When she repeated the words, "E strano", each time it was different because the mental image at the back of the note was different--a mastery of psychological penetration."

Luciano Pavarotti advises young singers to make a sincere study of the recordings of Rosa Ponselle. To many young singers in any age - ours, or some distant ones - this will always be excellent advice. She is the Queen of Queens in all singing!

Rosa Ponselle's legato was perfect, utterly seamless, sinuous, exquisitely modulated, with a control of breath that leaves a listener breathless in wonder.

Rosa Ponselle had reserves of power, when the role or dramatic situation called for it of a big dramatic soprano, but her habitual range was that of a lirico-spinto with dazzling exactitude in agility.

Rosa Ponselle as Fiora in Montemezzi's L'AMORE DEI TRE RE would have a divorce court judge give her husband a divorce without hearing further evidence, if he had heard her "Ritorniamo" breathed to her lover.

Rosa Ponselle's voice was one piece, even from top to bottom. The changes of registers were inaudible. There was only a slight and gradual darkening of colour as she moved down to the lowest notes.

Aside from words and specific emotions to express, Rosa Ponselle never produced a sound which was not, in itself, musical, beautiful and meaningful.

Marilyn Horne wrote that Rosa Ponselle remains the model of all models, which every singer should have as required listening.

Giovanni Martinelli recalled Rosa Ponselle's golden tones, her exquisite artistry, the magnificence of her presence and the inspiration she gave.

Lauritz Melchior said that he was lifted into a higher sphere every time he heard Rosa Ponselle's great art and beautiful voice.

Geraldine Farrar, prior to her death, wrote to Rosa Ponselle that she would always hear the pristine glory of her voice in its lush cadenzas. Ponselle's voice was a fountain of melody, blessed by the Lord.

Max de Schauensee recalled that at age 22, Ponselle's high notes were monumental with steely brilliance, while her middle register caressed with unsurpassing mellowness, a bewitching, velvety lilt in her tones. Whatever changes occurred as the years slipped by, one fact emerges unaltered--Ponselle's voice remained one of the most phenomenal and one of the most musical the world has ever heard!

Every word, every syllable Rosa Ponselle sang, was shaped and enunciated to make whatever she sang mean something.

"There Was Nothing Like the Ponselle Sound--Ever!" wrote music critic Harold Schonberg.

Rosa Ponselle's legato was a constant wonder, and her vocal color ravishing, always making her very convincing and moving.

Rosa Ponselle was superb as Violetta and she brought a superlative greatness to the role, which was well conceived throughout the opera. She sang with shading and nuance, soaring with effortless brilliance, rushing headlong through scales and never missing a note, as heard in her "Sempre libera"!

For a major revival of Mozart's DON GIOVANNI at the Metropolitan Opera (l930), Tullio Serafin chose Elizabeth Rethberg, Rosa Ponselle and Beniamino Gigli. He paid them a great tribute when he told them that the blending of their voices in the "Mask Trio" was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard!

Victor de Sabata, who couldn't attend Rosa Ponselle's LA VESTALE performance at the Teatro Comunale in Florence, Italy (l933), did manage to attend one rehearsal! Years later, when retired, he visited the United States and went to see Ponselle at "Villa Pace". He told her he considered her LA VESTALE rehearsal perhaps the greatest artistic experience of his life!

When one heard Rosa Ponselle on stage or on recordings, one would hear the lushest, most sensuous and most perfect voice in living or recorded memory.

The last time concert pianist Arthur Rubenstein appeared with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Rosa Ponselle wanted to see him be- fore the concert and went backstage to wait for him. As he came up the back stairs, he spotted her. He immediately dropped to his hands and knees, and taking both of her hands into his, kissed them and exclaimed, "Oh voice of the angels, what have I done to deserve such an honor as this?"

Harold C. Schonberg wrote of Ponselle: "That big pure colorful golden voice would rise effortlessly, hitting the stunned listener in the face, rolling over the body, sliding down the shoulder blades, making one wiggle with sheer physiological pleasure.

While she was a woman who enjoyed life and loved singing, Rosa Ponselle, nonetheless, had an ambivalent attitude toward her own career. "It's an endless job," she said, "I'd never do it again. I'm happy I did it, but I wouldn't do it again. I'd have a family and children." Rosa Ponselle had a presence--she was that sort of person--magnetic! The minute Ponselle came on stage or into a room, she dominated all of you! You knew Ponselle was there!

Rosa Ponselle was the undisputed Queen of song and the only soprano to have been called a "second Caruso." Both in size of voice, in quality, in vocal range and in superlative artistic handling of her singing, Ponselle had no rivals.

Rosa Ponselle's musical intellect, compounded with a marvelous grasp of the histrionic, has given her operatic interpretations an artistic impact which will live as long as the memory of man.

The warmth of Rosa Ponselle's heart and the depth of her emotions are communicated in every word she sings. Her tones of ethereal beauty haunt the mind.

Rosa Ponselle's middle register was ravishingly beautiful in its full-blooded quality and its vibrant freedom. Her low notes had the organ-like opulence of a contralto.

The basic quality of Rosa Ponselle's vocal material, her head resonances, the texture and tension of her vocal chords and the muscles surrounding and controlling them, were unlike any other singer, past or present.

In the operas NORMA and L'AFRICAINE, tenor Giacomo Lauri-Volpi found Rosa Ponselle's voice unsurpassable for beauty of timbre, temperament and interpretation--both vocal and histrionic. Rosa Ponselle had a rich texture of voice with a fiery top, throbbing depths and spine-tingling control!

When London music critic, Ida Cook, told Geraldine Farrar that she had never heard a greater singer than Rosa Ponselle, Farrar replied, "You could not have done so, my dear, because there was no greater singer for you to hear!"

After a performance of CARMEN in Boston, the reviewer for the Boston Globe wrote, "She's Ponselle and she has the world by the ear."

Rosa Ponselle remembered that if an artist could thoroughly identify herself with her role, the stage action would be a natural outcome of her impersonation. It would express itself with a sincerity and conviction that the most painstaking stage direction would not give. Stage action should depend to a great extent on spontaneous interpretation!

Rosa Ponselle, recalling the old recording horn and acoustical method of recording, said "everything had to be rushed to fit the four-minute side. They would push you to the horn when you sang pianissimo and pulled you back for the fortes. It was a strain on the nerves. Many beautiful passages were lost because you could not express yourself as you would before the public. There was no time for countless details. I was never quite pleased with myself in recordings."

As an opera, Rosa Ponselle found LA FORZA DEL DESTINO supremely difficult. Not technically, like LOUISA MILLER, NORMA or ERNANI, all of which require Herculean vocal efforts, but difficult dramatically and in its tessitura. Ponselle thought top, top, top--up, up, up to keep her voice light and sustain that extremely high pitch Verdi established for the tone of the opera.

Rosa Ponselle once told an interviewer, "In the surroundings of an opera performance, once I am deep in it, I am living it. Between the acts and in my dressing room to change costumes, I do not realize I am Rosa Ponselle. I seem instead to be Aida, Gioconda, Norma--the woman I am singing. And when the last curtain falls, I am a rag--but contented."

Rosa Ponselle often said that in singing--one tone differs from another and it is the WORD which must color the tone. The text is most important! A singer must suffer with the text, be exalted by the text and must live the text!

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