Dorothy Maynor was “discovered” and to some extent defined by her performance of this aria at a Tanglewood concert in 1939. Although she was denied an American operatic career (she reportedly learned over 100 roles), she sang at the inaugurations of Harry S Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower and founded the Harlem School of the Arts in 1963.
This is one of those arias that outlived the opera of which it was a part. Curiously, this aria was not written for an opera. Rather, the opera was written to fulfill the sentiment of the aria.
The opera has not survived in the repertoire, but the aria, “Depuis le jour”, is an abiding miracle of expressivity. Maynor sings it with an eloquence and a perfection it has rarely had, before or since this recording of October 20, 1940.
