Quaintance Eaton (1901–1992)

Quaintance Eaton was born in Kansas City, Missouri, where she became an opera devotee before moving to New York City in the early 1920s. She wrote frequent articles on the subject for Musical America magazine, eventually becoming associate editor, and was also a contributing editor to Opera News. She also served as executive secretary of the National Federation of Music Clubs and of the New York City Opera Guild. Miss Eaton was the author of an anecdotal history of the Metropolitan Opera on tour entitled Opera Caravan (1957). Two further classic volumes of opera history followed, The Boston Opera Company (1965), and The Miracle of the Met (1968). Her last work was Sutherland and Bonynge: An Intimate Biography (1987), a study of the foremost husband-and-wife team in the world of opera in that period.