Pearl Besuner, Photographs and Promotional Leaflet

. Pearl Besuner, Photographs and Promotional Leaflet. Pearl Besuner (1901-1991) was a longtime opera singer and player. Here are 2 8" x 10"photographs of her including one of her playing in Jack and the Beanstalk (with photograph by Carlo Edwards). She debuted at the Metropolitan Opera as Siebel in Faust. She was also one of the featured singers in the Golden Age of Opera series. Pitts Sanborn's The Prima Donna novel was based on her life. When she appeared in 1933 in Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones (in blackface), it raised no objections but fans of the play's history today consider it one of those offensive issues that the audiences of 1933 did not consider strange. Very unusual to find a photograph of her in a play in a photograph taken by Carlo Edwards whose photographs are in collections at NYPL, Columbia and Yale as well as in private collections.