Beschreibung:

Title: Archive relating to the operatic career of Frank Forest, with scrapbooks, photographs, programs, ephemeral material, and more, compiled by Forest himself Author: Forest, Frank [Franco Foresta] Place: Various places Publisher: Date: Mostly 1930's Description: Archive comprised in the main of five large scrapbook albums, with six manila folders of publicity photographs, programs for his performances, and more. Frank Forest, operatic tenor and actor, who sometimes went by the more exotic Franco Foresta, was actually born Frank Hayek in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1896. After some years working in New York as a salesman, he traveled to Italy where he studied singing, and made his operatic debut in 1928. He eschewed a successful business career to pursue his musical career and spent twelve years performing leading tenor roles in opera houses all over Europe and acted in several films, including "I'll Take Romance" along with American soprano and actress Grace Moore in 1937. In 1955 he helped create the Empire State Festival, a New York summer opera festival. Frank Forest died on December 23, 1976 in Santa Monica, California. The present archive provides an insight into his career not to be found elsewhere. This archive comprises five thick albums/scrap books of various sizes, six manila folders of professional photographs, a folder of publicity materials, and a few loose programmes. These are all arranged in rough chronological order, although the contents of the albums often overlap each other. Included are: myriad newspaper clippings re FF and his career in all three media; magazine articles; advertisements for FF’s services and announcements of performances; original photographs (professionally taken and candid shots) of FF, sometimes in costume and in performance; many movie stills from FF’s films, and professionally-taken “on set” shots; letters and telegrams; press releases; operatic and other performance programmes; record catalogs containing FF songs; invitations; publicity materials; contracts; and odds and ends. The condition of the five albums is spotty: some of the items inside are chipped or even tattered, many of them have come unglued, some (mostly articles received from a clipping service) are simply laid in. Some of the pages have hand-lettered labels, providing dates, names of people, and locations of events. Taken as a group, the materials in this archive provide a comprehensive picture of the life and career of a performer who was world-famous, especially in the 1930s and 40s, not only as an opera star, but also as a radio and movie star. ~~ The first album, containing most of the earliest material, has a padded, tattered floral cover, tied. Its 40 pages are 8 ½” x 11 ¼” and their contents cover the years 1930-1933, with some of the clippings written in Italian and some items simply laid in at the back. After a 9 ¼” x 6 ½” professional head shot of FF, the album starts with the 1930 material relating to FF’s “debut” in March, singing baritone in Faenza, Italy, in “La Boheme”. These items include congratulatory telegrams and letters (mostly from family members) housed in a glued-in envelope, news clippings (some from Minnesota papers, one of which refers to FF as “Edgar L. Hayek’s brother”), a broadside (10” x 6 ½”) announcing his debut performance, newspaper reviews, postcards showing the theater, etc. Also from 1930 are FF’s contract dated 16 January, 1930 with a theater in Milan, pages of news clippings (reviews, etc.), a congratulatory note in May from Giuseppina Cavallero re his “splendid success”, clippings of articles and reviews re other FF performances that Spring, and broadsides for “Pagliacci” (May 7) and “La Traviata” (Sept. 28). The year concludes with a professional head shot of FF and his note that in November, 1930, he entered a “New Era” changing “from baritone to tenor,” and that he received his “first contract one year later as leading tenor at La Scala.” From 1931 is a