A new set of recordings of opera singer Olive Middleton have just become available. Who’s that, you say? Some great legend of the stage of whom I was previously unaware? Well, not exactly: “Middleton’s singing goes beyond parody. And it goes well beyond good singing. It’s just plain awful.” But her celebrity during her heyday in Britain was such that no one seemed to mind that her voice deteriorated so early in her long career. And besides, “all opera hovers on the border of parody. No other performing art — except possibly dance — so exposes its practitioners to ridicule. Part of the thrill of opera is pitting sheer volume against human limitations, the constant awareness of the possibility of failure.”