This beautiful, 11” x 19” book offers a treasure trove of rare photos. Vividly narrated by Melinda Bargreen of The Seattle Times, who covered Seattle Opera for close to 40 of the company’s 50 years.
Bargreen’s compelling chronicle begins with the pioneering days of opera in Seattle and covers the power struggles at Seattle Opera’s inception; details founding General Director Glynn Ross’s friendships with superstars Joan Sutherland and Beverly Sills, and his pie-in-the-sky idea of presenting Wagner’s Ring in Seattle; follows Speight Jenkins from his first Seattle appearance (as a speaker on the Ring) to the triumph of operatic glasnost he engineered when Seattle Opera gave War and Peace for the 1990 Goodwill Games, to the creation of McCaw Hall.
The book features a “Who’s Who” of more than 50 key players including Marion Oliver McCaw, Henry Holt, Archie Drake, Perry Lorenzo, Vinson Cole, Jane Eaglen, Greer Grimsley, and many others.