cover image American Aria: From Farm Boy to Opera Star

American Aria: From Farm Boy to Opera Star

Sherrill Milnes. Schirmer Trade Books, $30 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-02-864739-5

In this unassuming autobiography, Milnes tells of his childhood on a small dairy farm near Chicago, his early musical education in public schools and a career that advanced smoothly from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chorus to Boris Goldovsky's workshop at Tanglewood, performance tours, lucrative voice-over jobs, the New York City Opera, a successful debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1965 and subsequent rise to fame as one of opera's great baritones. The book is replete with anecdotes about singers, conductors, directors, audiences, accompanists, critics and the pitfalls of performing in opera--dangerous sword fights, falling sets, fires on stage, getting locked in a bathroom just before an entrance. But these and even accounts of his three marriages are all a bit bland, perhaps because Milnes, who comes across as unusually modest for an opera star, seems to try to avoid offending anyone. The final chapters are the most effective, for in them he movingly describes ""a decade of panic,"" when broken capillaries in his vocal cords made each performance a nightmare of uncertainty and ended his career at the Met, which unceremoniously phased him out after 32 years as one of its leading lights. A chronology of key dates in Milnes's career, a summary of his performances at the Met, a discography and more than 50 b&w photos are included. (Oct.)