Great Singers on Great Singing: A Famous Opera Star Interviews 40 Famous Opera Singers on the Technique of Singing [Paperback]

Jerome Hines (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2004

Jerome Hines has interviewed 40 singers, a speech therapist, and a throat specialist to provide this invaluable collection of advice for all singers. This collection includes the commentary of Licia Albanese, Franco Corelli, Placido Domingo, Nicolai Gedda, Marilyn Horne, Sherrill Milnes, Birgit Nilsson, Luciano Pavarotti, Rose Ponselle, Beverly Sills, Joan Sutherland and many others. "Probably the best book on the subject." Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If some of renowned bass Hines's "great singers" seem to have been included more for political reasons (after all, he had to work with these people) than because they were truly great, most of them do rate the title, and there's something for the singer to learn from almost all of them--about technique, learning music, developing the voice, preserving the voice--even if in a few cases it's what not to do. If nothing else, the book proves what an inexact science vocal pedagogy really is, and the anecdotes are worth reading. Hines's subjects include Birgit Nilsson, Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne, Luciano Pavarotti, and other operatic stars, primarily of the generation just passing, that which came to prominence in the '60s and '70s.

Product Details

• Paperback: 358 pages
• Publisher: Limelight Editions; 7 edition (July 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879100257
• ISBN-13: 978-0879100254
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #176,892 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #95 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Theory, Composition & Performance > Sheet Music & Scores > Forms & Genres > Opera

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Tips for the Well Trained Singer, March 21, 2006

By 

Linda C. Davis "voracious reader" (okefenoke swamp) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Great Singers on Great Singing: A Famous Opera Star Interviews 40 Famous Opera Singers on the Technique of Singing (Paperback)

I'm a mezzo soprano with more than 40 years of performance experience and I learned new things when I read this book. It's not for beginners as the technical references would be confusing. But for the experienced singer who always wants to learn and improve there is a wealth of information. On the first read through I just examined what the mezzos had to say...a good way to get info quickly for your particular voice type...then I sat down and read it all. This will be a permanent part of my music library.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful Book, January 27, 2006

By 

BDSinC "Music lover" (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Singers on Great Singing: A Famous Opera Star Interviews 40 Famous Opera Singers on the Technique of Singing (Paperback)

I read this book when I was young (borrowed it from the Library) then bought it later. At the time I first read it, I was studying singing myself and I really wanted to make sense of what teachers were saying and what great singers had to say about singing. I found the book wonderfully insightful, but completely contradictory. It seemed so few singers agreed with one another. It was like black was white to some of them. The descriptions of the passagio left me more than confused, "Making the throat space larger by making it smaller?" Or Corelli's idea of shoving your tongue down your throat to hold the larynx low (a thing that literally choked me!).

I concluded that there were as many ways of singing as there were singers. And NONE of their insight helped me one bit in understanding my own voice teacher (who I left because in the end, I was getting no where, and only getting a sore throat).

Once I had found a great teacher (a former very famous Wagnerian soprano) who really seemed to understand about freeing the voice, I began to understand what things meant. She was able to tell me what the different terms people used meant, and that sometimes terms that sound in contradiction really were explaining the same thing. At this point, I purchased the book and read it again. With this new insight I was able to make more sense of what the various singers were saying. It is true, they still contradicted each other as far as their methods, but at least I was able to see they were still talking about achieving the same things. Some of the singers were using the same technique I was being taught, and they explained it well enough (though in different terms) so I could see what they were all about. I also listened to their recordings and could hear the same things I was being taught.

In the end, though the book was written to help curious people understand what makes these particular singers "wonderful", again one must never use it to teach yourself or anyone else proper singing technique. If you used all you read, you would tie your throat into a knot.

For me, what I found most interesting was learning what these various singers were trying to achieve in their singing, and that was very insightful and beneficial. Even Jerome Hines shares a time period where he lost his confidence (and as far as I can learn, I think he had about the longest active singing career of any singer in living memory), where he actually when to see a therapist to discover what suddenly was overcoming him and ruining his ability to produce like he used to. The psychological aspects of singing are seldom talked about in any technique, but he reveals some super important ideas about what and how we feel about ourselves and how they can actually destroy what we are trying to do (and that bad technique doesn't even have to be a part of that).

No matter the real value of the book, I have to say that what is written in these interviews is often the closest we will ever come to what these singers thought about when dealing with technique and singing, and some, like Sutherland, openly admit they really can't explain what they do and only have vague understanding of what is actually going on (and yet, with all this lack of really understanding her own technique, when retired and in old age, this woman would sit in masters classes and judge good singing -- perhaps she could hear what was good, but obviously even throughout her own career couldn't figure out for herself why it is good).

I am glad he wrote this book, just because it is interesting to read, but like I say, you really do need some vocal study background to really figure out what they are talking about, and even then, there is no guarantee what they say will make that much sense.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Superb book giving priceless insights into singing., November 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Great Singers on Great Singing: A Famous Opera Star Interviews 40 Famous Opera Singers on the Technique of Singing (Paperback)

What to say about this book?

Jerome Hines, in my view one of the great singers of this century, in his long career as a professional singer, got to work with and meet some of the greatest voices in recent history.

Mr. Hines got responses from these great artists, and collected them in a book as an inestimable resource for the rest of us, and I am truly grateful for having had the chance to share in what they brought to the world of music and vocal performance.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in vocal performance or vocal pedagogy, or anyone who would love to read about some of the great voices of our time having a friendly chat about their lives and art with another great artist.