I’m sure that the cognoscenti had watched her ascent under James Levine‘s patronage so she did not exactly come from nowhere. For us music-school types, her back story was inspirational. We’d all known of excellent singers who took the music-ed route: a performance degree was just too risky and a bit presumptuous. We didn’t care if hers was a mostly phonogenic instrument (after all it’s all we had to go on), and this was years before I had any idea that there were rumors her voice at the Met was artfully but artificially amplified. No matter. Her sound, her whole being, was like a perfectly ripe, perfectly proportioned strawberry. In time, I would come to prefer (for example) Gruberova‘s Zerbinetta. I would mostly eschew Miss Battle’s renditions of fill-in-the blank, though her Poulenc “Gloria” is still seared in my brain and entrails, and it’s easy to forget that her recorded legacy is strong. If pressed, I could probably get excited about other renditions of this perilous ditty. But back in the day, she had it all, she was it all.