Mario Lanza

Just a mention of an essay of mine on the singer Mario Lanza, who died 45 years ago today. That essay,"Like a Man Possessed," is a review of an extraordinary book by Armando Cesari: Mario Lanza: An American Tragedy, which dramatizes the effects on one man's life of the lethal dichotomy between"serious" art and"popular" entertainment. It also discusses the ways in which various government actions over time impacted, tragically, on one solitary life.