Lawrence Tibbett was born at the turn of the last century. Hailing from Bakersfield, California, he was an artist with a voice that could do it all. And he did.
He was a great American opera singer. A baritone whose golden voice and good looks also saw him perform as a film actor and radio personality.
He sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera company more than 600 times. In theater, he took on roles from Iago in “Otello” to Captain Hook in “Peter Pan.”
How did the son of a part-time deputy sheriff, killed in a shootout with a desperado, become so famous? What doesTibbett’sstory tell us about who gets to perform what today?
Jenn White is joined by the host of 1A‘s More Than Music series, Joseph Horowitz.
More Than Music is scripted by Joe Horowitz. Sound design and production by Peter Bogdanoff. Joe Horowitz is the author of Joe Horowitz is the author of “The Propaganda of Freedom: JFK, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and the Cultural Cold War.” More than Music is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Earlier ‘More Than Music’ programs can be found here, here, here, and here.
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