The Art of Singing: Golden Voices of the Century.

No gay opera nut will come away hungry from The Art of Singing: Golden Voices of the Century, a video banquet featuring more than two dozen singing legends as they have presented themselves to movie and television cameras throughout the 20th century. The meal starts with tenor Enrico Caruso in the silent era, when theaters synchronized the appropriate record with the flickering image, and finishes with Jon Vickers in 1974 singing an aria from Fidelio for Canadian television. In between you'll sample the imperishable gifts of such greats as Maria Callas and Magda Olivero (both in Tosca) as well as Joan Sutherland, Leontyne Price, Rosa Ponselle (in her hilarious MGM screen test), Kirsten Flagstad, and Renata Tebaldi, who, with the help of Jussi Bjorling, feasts on Act I of La Boheme (you won't believe how Puccini transforms two unprepossessing middle-aged people into the world's most ardent young lovers). A few of the singers (Olivero, Rise Stevens) offer pithy commentaries, but it is the visual and sonic appeal of such megastars as Franco Corelli, Ezio Pinza, Fritz Wunderlich, Victoria de los Angeles, Lauritz Melchior, Conchita Supervia, and Lawrence Tibbett that leave you breathless. Yes, giants like these once populated our opera houses. A promise--after these compelling two hours, you'll never again ask, "What is a diva?" You'll know.