Charles Michener mourns Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. “On Monday, July 3, the most luminous voice I’ve ever heard was extinguished when the American mezzo soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson died at the age of 52. Everything this astonishing woman did was almost too much to bear. As with Maria Callas, whom she matched in eruptive intensity, Hunt Lieberson’s performances took you so deeply into what she was singing about that the experience verged on voyeurism.”