Florence Easton (1882-1955) was a remarkable singer, capable of learning roles within hours and frequently pinch-hitting for other sopranos on very short notice, with excellent results. The voice is big and purely produced from low-A to high-C, her diction is immaculate, she’s never vulgar, she never forces the voice, her breath control is admirable, and her repertoire is huge–88 roles, including Elektra, Butterfly, Brünnhilde, Violetta, and Sophie! She retired from opera when in her 13th Met season, after 354 performances, she looked out into the audience in mid-opera and realized she knew neither words nor notes–and also couldn’t remember what opera she was singing in. (She returned briefly and concertized for years.) She recorded plenty, but no Strauss, little Wagner, and sadly, no Fiordiligi, a role she introduced to the Met. Caruso said her head was a music box (“She takes off the lid, takes out one record and puts in another”) and judging from these 46 excerpts, he was right.
Easton was everything but imaginative: She rarely infuses a character with real individuality, her rhythm is flawless to a fault (no creative rubato unless it’s unavoidable), and even the fact that her diction is perfect manages to come across as slightly calculating and uninteresting. There’s no fuss, no melodrama, and, mostly, no charm. But she is thoroughly admirable and the voice is of constant high quality. She should be heard, and this two-CD set of recordings from her prime (she seems only to have had a prime) presents her voice and art honestly and accurately.
