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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Good Bio of a Complex and Difficult Personality, January 16, 2000
As the author of a Jussi Bjorling biography that was never published in this country, I empathize with the task that faced Jeannie Williams. How can you make the bare details of a career interesting when you get no cooperation from the subject or his family? Then again, where do you draw the line and decide if a negative anecdote is unfair or probably untrue? Williams' solution was to try to present two sides to every argument, a noble idea that still sometimes did not work. The vindictive Terry McEwen, for instance, who rubbed a lot of artists the wrong way, is not entirely to be trusted in his presentation of Vickers as a man who betrayed friends, and there are likewise many singers who felt the same way about Georg Solti that Vickers did (he was a megalomaniac who purposely drowned singers out with his loud, raucous conducting). Even so, the portrait of Vickers that emerges is probably 80% fair and honest. It's the other 20% that disturbs me. As someone who spent 22 years of their life being backstage with opera singers, conductors etc., I know that this is not and never has been the "nice" world that outsiders often view it as. It is a cut-throat field in which a few dozen major "names" jockey for position in productions and recordings. It is also a business that eats young singers alive and punishes those whio do not "play ball." In this environment, Jon Vickers' actions make perfect sense to me. He had to fight tooth and nail to 1) carve out a repertoire that he felt psychologically and vocally comfortable with, 2) remain on top despite the fact that he could be bossy, difficult to work with and yet not really popular, and 3) maintain his own artistic integrity in the face of the demands of producers and impresarios. The difficulty he had, for instance, in getting his interpretation of "Die Winterreise" accepted is but one example of how petty and hard-minded critics and booking agents could be towards him. (My own opinion is that his "Winterreise" is very poetic and word-directed, more of a psychological than a strictly "musical" interpretation.) I remember when he sang "Forza del Destino" at the Met: the loud-mouthed opera regulars picked apart his singing during intermissions, stating that even such a secondary tenor as Barry Morell could sing it better. So much for Vickers' acceptance as an artist, even when his was the most fascinating and psychologically probing interpretation of the role ever given (I still recall the pained, strangulated voice with which he sang "Solenne in quest'ora"). Sheer athletic vocalism always seems to be appreciated more than artistic probing. Williams' book does reveal some personal flaws and weaknesses in this most intense of tenors. But this is only to be expected from a singer who gave so much in each and every performance. Pop critics talk about how rock screamers like Joe Cocker tear out their hearts when they sing, but Cocker has nothing on Vickers. He was animal intensity personified, his craggy voice the voice of Everyman in his struggle to survive a brutal and oftimes unfriendly world.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A biography worthy of the subject, April 27, 2001
This is one of the finest biographies of a singer I have ever read. (And I've read a lot.) Jon Vickers was one of the greatest singers of the past 50 years, the supreme Siegmund, Florestan, Tristan, Aeneas and Peter Grimes of his time. (And no slouch as Otello, Canio, Samson and Parsifal, either.) He was a singer with a unique timbre, an iconoclastic temprement, and a burning sense of his artistic mission. Like many great artists, he could sometimes act a little crazy. He was stubborn, short-tempered (he did not suffer fools at all, much less gladly) and on occasion, downright irrational and almost violent. He was also a deeply spiritual man and great artist capable of giving performances of almost transcendant beauty and intensity. Jeannie Williams gives a comprehensive picture of the great tenor, both his abundant virtues and his manifest warts. The book is well-reasearched and remarkably complete in its account of his career, considering that Vickers refused to participate or cooperate with the author. Vickers' deep Christian beliefs and convictions are treated respectfully and recognized as an integral part of what made him the artist that he was. The most fascinating chapters are the ones on Vickers' notorious Tannhäuser cancellation in the late 70s (which left both Covent Garden and the Met in the lurch), and on his relationship with the opera "Peter Grimes." As to the former, Vickers maintained that he could not sing Tannhäuser because his religious convictions prevented him from finding any point of connection with the character, and because he found Tannhäuser "revolting." But every single person interviewed for the book, many of them wholly sympathetic to Vickers, believed that the real reason for Vickers' cancellation was because he could not handle the vocal demands of the part. The author allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusion about the incident. As for Peter Grimes, which many consider Vickers' greatest role, Williams affirms that the composer disliked Vickers interpretation intensely and resented Vickers' unilateral (and unauthorized) rewrite of some of the text. (Vickers later claimed that Britten had sanctioned the changes and that they had been made in collaboration with conductor Colin Davis, but according to Williams, they were entirely Vickers' doing.) This is the very best kind of operatic biography - written by someone who deeply admires the subject but who does not allow that admiration to cloud her judgment or degenerate into fan-like gush. This will no doubt remain the definitive biography of Vickers for quite some time. Highly recommended.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A book worth reading, March 26, 2000
The eight editorial reviews and the readers' reviews of this biography of John Vickers are very accurate and perceptive. This book is indeed required reading for any opera goer who is interested in the inner workings of opera and the anguish and joy that frequently accompany a dedicated singer. I had seen all Mr. Vickers' roles at the Metropolitan Opera, as well as his famed concert at Carnegie Hall in which he made references to John Wayne, and, in general, rambled on with commentary between sets of songs. (Ms. Williams fails to point out that he sang one of the best "Wintersturms" of his career on this afternoon as an encore.) There is no doubt about it: Vickers' Parsifals, Siegmunds, and his two Tristans at the Met were among the highlights in the long history of The Metropolitan Opera House.(My wife and I were at the famed Nilsson "Tristan" on January 30, 1974, and words cannot begin to describe the beauty and intensity of that performance!) But there was a dark, disturbing side to Mr. Vickers that is brought out in the biography, and, I must say, this dark side disturbed me more than it did Ms. Williams. Indeed, it is hard to justify his brutal rudeness and insensitivity throughout his artistic career. Sally Presant, the soprano who sang Emelia in Mr. Vickers' last "Otellos" in South Africa, sums it up succinctly when she remarks that Vickers was guilty of "incredible intolerance under a heart of pure gold." Mr. Vickers' blatant arrogance and egocentricity is shown a few pages later when he disregards all historical documentation from Sir John Tooley about Handel's "Samson" by saying that only he knows how the opera should be staged and sung, and "This is the way it is." I also found Mr. Vickers to be hypocritical. He claims that all his objections are for art's sake, but he is frequently wrong, as evidenced by his arrogance regarding the singing of "Sampson." Moreover, he claims to possess Christian virtues, yet his cruel treatment of such people as Julius Rudel, June Anderson, Carol Vaness, and his friend Roberta Knie is unconscionable to any Christian. If he were truly crusading for justice and honor, why did he not put himself on the line in helping Ms. Knie when she needed it? Mr. Vickers frequently inferred that his egomania was justified by God, but there are many singers who inbue pure Christian virtues who never acted like Vickers. I might mention, in passing, Jerome Hines, Stanford Olsen, Dawn Upshaw, Hans Hotter, Fritz Wunderlich, and Kurt Moll. These singers did not blame everything on someone else and throw childish tantrums at rehearsals. Ms. Williams mentions Mr. Vickers' frequent and blatant cruelty to other artists, all of which is unjustified and hardly worthy of a man who claims to be dedicated to God. He was indeed a great artist, but, as Sir John Tooley remarks near the end of the book in summing up Mr. Vickers' career: He would have been even greater if "his own imagination" could have been "stimulated by others" -- that is, by the many brilliant conductors, directors, and advisors with whom he worked. We can excuse Mr. Vickers' harsh treatment of opera house directors, impressarios, and agents on basis of their unethical behavior; but it is impossible to excuse the cruel treatment of his colleagues throughout his life. I've no doubt that Mr. Vickers' had a heart of gold and that he was a wonderful family man and colleague. However, the darkness and cruelty contaminated these virtues -- a fact that Jeannie Williams brings out in an excellent book that every opera lover should read!
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