Stage director and author Brian Morgan has released a new monograph on famed American soprano Karen Armstrong.

“A Cool Brilliance: The Legacy of Karan Armstrong” is officially available on Amazon and features a brief study of the work of Armstrong, a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1966 and a leading singer at the New York City Opera from 1969 through 1977. She also performed at the Metropolitan Opera, debuting in 1966, as well as the Bayreuth Festival, and the Deutsche Oper Berlin (400 performances in 24 roles), among others.

She also famously appeared in numerous world premiere of such works as “Der Meister und Margarita,” “Un re in ascolto,” “Susannah,” “Lou Salomé,” and “The Ballad of Baby Doe,” among many others.

“I have always been passionate about the great singing-actors. When I saw–via PBS–Karan Armstrong in her film of “La voix humaine” in 1979, I was immediately captivated by her histrionics and her unusual voice. From then on, I collected her recordings, and in recent years became her friend on facebook, where we occasionally had private chats about her career,” Morgan told OperaWire. “The monograph looks at her official and unofficial recordings, both audio and video. When Miss Armstrong passed away in 2021, I remarked that I wondered if I loved her even more than I loved Maria Callas.”

Morgan directed productions of such operas as “Suor Angelica,” “Savitri,” “Cards,” and “La Voix Humaine,” throughout his career as a stage director. He also published “Strange Child of Chaos: Norman Treigle,” his first book.