intelligent re-assessment of tenor Mario Lanza

"His contemporary Oreste Kirkop knew it. "Only a great heart can sing the way that Lanza sang," the Maltese tenor once observed, echoing the words of Lawrence Tibbett, who had earlier hailed Lanza's "natural zest and unbelievable diction." Although the longhairs have panned him as "a movie singer," Tibbett publicly declared in 1950, Lanza is "the greatest musical talent of America in our century. A man who is bringing great music to the kids, the farms, the ghettos, and the palaces." In 50 years, he concluded, "people will recognise Lanza for the great artist he is.""