Jarmila Novotna (1907-1994) was a Czech opera singer who made movies with Fred Zinnemann, Montgomery Clift and Mario Lanza. She was a favorite of Arturo Toscanini, who brought her to New York in 1938. Just in time, as 鈥渢he lights were going off all over Europe.鈥�
Novotna sang over 200 performances at The Metropolitan Opera between 1940 and 1956. She appeared in Broadway musicals and in Europe was a prot茅g茅 of the great director Max Reinhardt. It was for Novotna that Franz Lehar wrote his opera Giuditta, which she introduced to Vienna in 1934.
Let's start with the pronunciation: YAR-mee-lah NOE-vut-nhah.
I used to see her during my New York years, from the audience at the Met 鈥� she in the General Manager鈥檚 box, me in standing room upstairs ($2).
The lady's memoir, Jarmila Novotna: My Life in Song, is , 25 years after her death. A version of this book was first published in Prague in the late 1980s. After her death in 1994, her heirs allowed William V. Madison to edit the various drafts, from which the present book arrives.
Why a book about a long-deceased opera singer? That her voice was very beautiful is evident even in the old recordings and broadcast tapes. The soprano was good enough for Toscanini, Reinhardt, Lehar, the Met and Hollywood.
Novotna's was the old-style glamour. I once saw her waiting for a bus on Madison Avenue in a Chanel suit, looking like she could sing Tosca within five minutes.
There was a long and happy marriage to a Czech baron. Lest we think it was all luxury, she makes clear that during the second World War she was the sole breadwinner. She had to keep singing and touring and earning money.