But attitudes are rapidly changing. In a recent reassessment of Lanza, the eminent musicologist William Park pronounced himself astonished by the tenor's vocal prowess. "I simply could not believe my ears!" Park declared of the CD of concert and home recordings that accompanies Cesari's biography. Singling out Lanza's home recording of the Improvviso from Andrea Chenier, Park praised the tenor's "superb diction, beauty of voice, [and] incredible feeling for the words." In short, he says, it is "a magnificent rendering of the aria...certainly to be ranked with the best."

Back in 1949 many music critics would have shared Park's enthusiasm. The 28-year-old tenor's rendition of Che Gelida Manina had just been voted Operatic Recording of the Year by the US National Critics Association, and indeed it seemed at the time that Lanza could do no wrong. Within a very short period, however, he would become an object of ridicule, reviled by tabloid journalists and musicologists alike. This essay examines the extraordinary rise and fall – and posthumous rehabilitation – of the 20th century's most controversial tenor.

Mario Lanza was born Alfred Arnold Cocozza in South Philadelphia on January 31st, 1921. The only child of Italian immigrants Antonio Cocozza and Maria Lanza, young Freddie – as he was known then – grew up listening to his father's extensive record collection of great singers. Besotted with opera from a very early age, Freddie was 16 when his own vocal endowment became apparent, and he was soon appearing in productions staged by the YMCA Opera Company in Philadelphia. His roles at this time included Contino Del Fiore in the rarely performed Crispino e la Comare (1850) by Federico and Luigi Ricci. In 1940 he began studying repertoire with the former soprano Irene Williams.

Two years later Freddie came to the attention of conductor Serge Koussevitzky, who declared of the then 21-year-old tenor, "Yours is a voice such is heard once in a hundred years." Koussevitzky promptly invited Freddie to the Berkshire Music Festival in Tanglewood, Massachusetts, where he provided him with a full student scholarship. It was here that Alfred Cocozza became Mario Lanza – the masculine form of his mother's maiden name.

After just six weeks of intensive study with conductors Boris Goldovsky and Leonard Bernstein, Lanza was deemed ready to make his operatic debut, appearing at Tanglewood in the role of Fenton in Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor on August 7th, 1942.

Writing in The New York Times the following day, music critic Noel Straus hailed the 21-year-old Lanza as "an extremely talented, if as yet not completely routined student, whose superb natural voice has few equals among tenors of the day in quality, warmth, and power." The perceptive Straus also commented on Lanza's "first-rate" diction. The following evening Lanza appeared as Rodolfo in a staging of the third act of Puccini's La Boheme, earning praise from Jay C. Rosenfeld, Straus's colleague at the Times, who wrote that, "Miss [Irma] Gonzales as Mimi and Mario Lanza as Rodolfo were conspicuous by the beauty of their voices and the vividness of their characterizations."

World War II abruptly halted Lanza's budding operatic career. Exempt from active service because of partial blindness in his left eye, Lanza was assigned to Special Services, later appearing in the wartime shows On the Beam and Winged Victory. Following his discharge in 1945, he married Chicago native Betty Hicks, the sister of one of his army friends. Betty eventually bore him four children, and their marriage – although stormy at times – would be a successful one.

Resuming his career, Lanza worked on voice technique with his friend and colleague, baritone Robert Weede, and studied operatic repertoire with Renato Cellini. He also worked closely with conductor Peter Herman Adler, then Musical Director for the Columbia Artists Management Touring Opera Company. Adler told colleagues that Lanza had "the greatest inherent, instinctive musicality" he had ever encountered. In 1951 he prophesied that, "Ten years with the right opera company, and no one could compare with [Lanza]."

In October 1945 the tenor was assigned to the CBS radio programme Great Moments in Music as a temporary replacement for Jan Peerce. Over the next four months he sang selections from works as varied as Otello and The Student Prince. Listening today to Lanza's singing of the demanding Gia' nella Notte Densa from Act I of Otello, one is struck by the unmistakable beauty of the voice, together with the commitment and musicality of the 24-year-old tenor's delivery. Lanza, however, was dissatisfied with his singing, and after six appearances left the show to work on his vocal technique.

It proved a fortuitous move, for he was soon introduced to the celebrated Enrico Rosati, former teacher of Beniamino Gigli and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi. "For 34 years, since Gigli, I have waited for this voice!" the maestro declared. Over the next fifteen months, Lanza studied intensively with Rosati, acquiring a much-improved sense of line, outstanding breath control, and a solid technique that would enable him to sing for hours without tiring. As Lanza's friend and colleague, the bass-baritone George London, later remarked, "The voice [prior to working with Rosati] was unschooled but of incredible beauty, with ringing fearless high notes...Rosati directed him to singing more lyrically, with less pressure, to good advantage."

Lanza's voice, as Rosati had quickly discovered, was a perfectly placed lirico spinto of extended range (low A to high D) with a luscious baritonal colouring in the middle and lower registers. As the critic Henry Fogel has noted, "His voice had a uniqueness of timbre [...] that made it immediately identifiable," together with "an authentic ring [and] tonal support at all dynamic levels." Contrary to bizarre rumours, it was also the requisite size. The vocal historian Henry Pleasants quotes George London as saying that in terms of natural vocal endowment, Lanza possessed more voice than almost any other male singer he had encountered.

Equally impressive was the way in which he used the voice. "He could be highly musical when he chose," writes Fogel. Moreover, "[Lanza] had an innate feel for leaning into a phrase that brings music to life." The Chicago Tribune's Claudia Cassidy took a similar view. Reviewing the first of the tenor's two concerts at Grant Park, Chicago in July 1947, she observed that, "[...] although a multitude of fine points evade him, [Lanza] possesses the things almost impossible to learn. He knows the accent that makes a lyric line reach its audience, and he knows why opera is music drama."

By now Columbia Artists Management had assembled what would become known as the Bel Canto Trio, comprising Lanza, George London, and soprano Frances Yeend. Between July 1947 and May 1948, the trio performed 86 concerts throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Singing a demanding programme that included scenes from The Magic Flute, Faust, Simon Boccanegra, and I Lombardi, the trio received excellent reviews, with Lanza invariably singled out as the exceptional talent of the three.