NORA LONDON: AN ARIA FOR GEORGE

The libraries are full of books about famous singers, many of them written, more or less, by famous singers. Most of them are very boring.

They tend to recount and embellish successes.

You know--”After my devastating conquest of Vienna and Liverpool, I sang Carmen in Buenos Aires, and the audience loved me so much it wouldn’t let me leave until I sang Brunnhilde’s ‘Immolation’ for an encore. Then the fans, bless them, met me at the stage door and carried me through the streets on their shoulders. Later, they named a delicious dessert after me. I hated to leave, but I had to sing Aida in Ethiopia at the special invitation of the King, who happened to worship me blah blah blah . . . . “

Star biographies tend, by the converse token, to fluff over failures. They ignore problems and shortcomings. They steadfastly avoid analysis and introspection. They put a smile on everything. They confuse puffery with truth, anecdotal gossip with enlightenment.

Most disappointing, perhaps, they tend to hide character definition behind tired cliches and vapid stereotypes.

“Aria for George” (E. P. Dutton: 244 pp., $19.95) isn’t like that.

In the first place, George London--the George of the title--was hardly a garden-variety hero. An imposing singer, a brilliant actor and a stubborn idealist, he was too intelligent, too thoughtful, too resourceful to fit the usual operatic mold.

In the second place, his life was far too dramatic, ultimately too tragic, to accommodate the customary narrative trivia.

In the third place, the author of this poignant literary portrait is too close to the subject to offer dispassionate generalities.

“Aria for George” wasn’t cranked out by some well-meaning admirer in biographer’s clothing. The book was written, in abiding affection and in pain, by Nora London, George London’s widow.

London’s career began in Los Angeles, where he grew up and received his basic vocal training. His modest debut--as the fleeting Doctor in a Hollywood Bowl “Traviata” in 1941--led rather quickly to genuine triumphs in Vienna and Bayreuth, at the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala in Milan and even the Bolshoi.

It was in Moscow that he made national history--bringing coals to Newcastle, as it were--as Boris Godunov.

In 1967, a crippling throat ailment brought his stage activities to a sad end. Virtually undaunted, London turned his attention to arts management, to lecturing, to teaching and to stage direction. Then, while on a trip to Germany, he suffered a heart attack that left him unable to move and unable to speak.

Day and night for seven years, until his death in 1985, Nora London tended heroically to her husband. She refused to place him in a hospital. She refused to abandon him to the care of others.

With simplicity and candor, “Aria for George” chronicles the ascent and the decline of a fine artist. The book paints a fascinating, candid portrait from a domestic perspective.

This is, above all, a good, clear-headed, unsentimental love story.

“Writing the book,” Nora London says over lunch during a Los Angeles visit, “was wonderful on some days and terrible on others. I couldn’t face it every day.

“It was wonderful to be able to relive the good times, to reread George’s letters, to sift through all his memorabilia. He was a hopeless collector, and he never threw anything away.

“In a way, I hoped the book might be some sort of catharsis for me, a way of getting over things. But it wasn’t that. I can’t get over.

“My motives were simple. I feel George led an extraordinary life. The full story had never been told. It was particularly important to me to recount how he lost his voice, and how marvelously he coped with that.

“He never once complained. He always had hope. He never thought negative. That helped me later.

“He was incredibly honest, sometimes to a fault. In spite of the tragedy, he still got in life what he wanted. That is why, all in all, I think he had a good life.

“I would have preferred him to die, if he had to, when he had the first attack. He was the last person on earth who would want to be dependent on anyone. But. . . . “

The voice trails off.

She brushes aside any suggestion that her devotion exceeded the norm.

“No one should think that I took care of him because I had to. No one should feel sorry for me. I wanted to take care of him. I wanted to see him, to touch him, to be able to be close to him. I never regretted that decision.

“The doctors and our children said he should be placed in an institution. If he had been, I still would have visited him, day and night. The last nurse he had had been rough with him. I couldn’t watch that happen.”

Nora London appreciated the cruel irony of her husband’s condition. This well-read, remarkably articulate, overwhelmingly successful artist was first deprived of his singingvoice, then deprived of the ability to speak at all.

She did not give in. She insisted on stimulating his mind. She played records for him, preferably his own. One day, a strange thing happened.

“George became very agitated. I could see that he was disturbed, so I started to turn the record off. He started to yell, to make desperate sounds.

“ ‘Do you want me to continue?’ I asked him.

“He said, ‘Yes.’

“I played ‘Der Fliegende Hollander,’ a tape from Bayreuth in 1959. When we got to his entrance monologue, ‘Die Frist ist um,’ George actually began to mouth the words. Every word.

“Later, when the other characters sang, George’s lips stopped moving. None of the doctors could explain this.

“He couldn’t speak, but I was convinced he could understand. He knew what was going on around him. That is why I needed to spend all my time with him. He may not have been able to follow abstract discussions, but he certainly was able to indicate ‘yes’ and ‘no.’

“For me he was there. He was alive. That was enough.

“For others, it was not enough. Some relatives and friends could not bear to see him this way. I understood that.”

She speaks of George London’s career as if she had been an integral, active part of it. She probably was.

“George didn’t feel he had rivals, just colleagues.

“Well, I can remember one problem, when Jerome Hines went to Moscow to sing Boris Godunov. His publicity claimed that he was the first American- born singer to undertake the role at the Bolshoi. George, who happened to be born in Canada of American parents, was furious about that. He was very proud of his success in Russia.”

What about Cesare Siepi, the celebrated Italian basso who competed with London in the arduous duties of Mozart’s amorous libertine?

“They liked each other a lot. In a way, each had his own territory. New York may have preferred Siepi’s Italianate approach in Don Giovanni, but George had Vienna.

“They still remember him in Vienna, still love him there. It is very touching.”

Unlike many an illustrious colleague, London did not pretend to be immune to criticism.

“I think it mattered to him. Like every artist, he wanted, needed approval. The good artists need it more than the bad ones.

“Sometimes I hid bad reviews from him, especially at the end of his career.”

One of London’s first projects after he stopped singing involved an ill-fated attempt to start a professional opera company in Los Angeles, in conjunction with administrative forces at USC.

“It was,” Nora London recalls, “a total fiasco. George was very sorry. It was not his fault. There just wasn’t enough money, and it didn’t seem to be the right time.

“He would be happy to know about the Music Center Opera, happy that it finally happened here.”

Nora London has returned to Manhattan and lives alone in an apartment on East 79th Street. It contains George London’s piano, some photos, a painting of him as Boris Godunov. It does not, she insists, harbor any ghosts.

“No. He’s not with me in the apartment.” She smiles faintly.

“Only his memory is there.”

She likes being able to go to the Met again, but avoids certain works.

“I can’t bear to hear another voice as Don Giovanni. I can’t see another Boris.”

For Nora London, one phantom still haunts the opera.