Book Description

As an American woman who attained the highest rank in her chosen field, she is an example of what can be accomplished through a combination of natural talent and the will to succeed. Rise's career is unique in that it encompassed opera, recordings, radio, films, television, academic, and arts administration. She was a mainstay at the Metropolitan Opera for twenty-three seasons. In the 1940s she had her own radio show, she appeared in a classic film. In the 1950s she was a popular guest on television, her recordings sold in the thousands. The complete Carmen has been in print for over fifty years, the Mannes School of Music survived a bleak period in the 1960s because of her, the Metropolitan Opera National Company was launched under her aegis, she is now a managing director of the Metropolitan Opera. This biography will attempt to show in greater detail a career that extended from Brooklyn to Prague, from Canada to South America, from parts of America where a lied or aria had never been heard to the centers of culture, Paris and Milan. Written in her tenth decade, it objectively reflects on a life well managed. Compared to Callas, Rise has lived a long life and has escaped notoriety.