John O’Sullivan

John O'Sullivan

Celebrated Irish operatic tenor. Born in Cork, he studied music in Paris. He spent much of his early career in France and the first World War years with numerous performances at the Opéra de Paris, when he began shortening his surname to "Sullivan". In 1918 and 1919 he performed in Chicago and New York, and in the 1920s toured Europe and South America. Though he sang a wide number of roles, he achieved particular fame for his skill as Arnold in Rossini's Guillaume Tell, a demanding role requiring a strenuously high vocal range. JJ met Sullivan in Paris in 1929 and for the next few years was a fervent and sometimes strident promoter of his performances. JJ's "From a Banned Writer to a Banned Singer" (New Statesman and Nation n.s. 3, no. 53 [7 February 1932], 260-61), is a piece of advocacy for Sullivan written in the style of Finnegans Wake. William Brockman