Legendary Voices [Paperback]

Nigel Douglas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1995

An account of the lives and careers of 14 of this century's greatest classical singers.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

There's a temptation to look at opera solely through the performances of our own time, and to forget the contributions of artists from an earlier era. (It can be equally tempting to conclude that great singing ended with the retirements of the singers we heard in our respective youths, but that's a different pathology.) Nigel Douglas takes an illuminating look at 14 great singers of the past, with a discussion of each, anecdotes, and compact disc recommendations.

Review

Legendary Voices is a wonderfully readable account of the lives and careers of fourteen of this century's greatest singers, along with a critical evaluation of their recorded works, which are available for the first time on CD. Nigel Douglas (a British tenor and producer of more than two hundred programs on opera and operetta for the BBC) brings to Legendary Voices not only the unrivaled knowledge of the professional but the irrepressible enthusiast of the aficionado. From Jussi Bjoerling to Rosa Ponselle, from Ezio Pinza to Kirsten Flagstad, most of these great singers seem to have led more extraordinary lives than the glamorous characters they immortalized on the stage. Not that their beginnings were always auspicious: Caruso's singing teacher told hm his voice sounded like "the wind whistling through a window"; Lotte Lehman was expelled from music school for failure to profit from instruction. Nor were their endings always happy: Luisa Tetrazzini ("I am old, I am fat, I am ugly - but I am still Tetrazinni") died in poverty, and Fritz Wunderlich in a tragic accident at the age of thirty-five. Full of wonderful anecdotes, Legendary Voices is also a mine of information about the range and quality of the newly available CDs, a book readers will turn to for advice as well as entertainment. -- Midwest Book Review

Product Details

• Paperback: 305 pages
• Publisher: Limelight Editions; 1st Limelight ed edition (March 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879101873
• ISBN-13: 978-0879101879
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,570,552 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Book on a Selection of Great 20th Century Opera Singers, January 25, 2009

By 

Doug - Haydn Fan (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Legendary Voices (Paperback)

Nigel Douglas wrote two wonderful books on opera singers - this is the first. (He also wrote a fine 2004 book all about the world of opera The Joy of Opera.) Douglas is a singer himself who studied and sang in Vienna; an opera producer in both Australia and England; and a mainstay for many years on the BBC specializing in singers and the opera. In this book, divided into 14 chapters for as many different singers, he gives each a short 20 to 25 page essay. (Caruso, not unreasonably, receives 30 pages.)
The singers in order of apperance are,

1. Jussi Bjorling; 2. Enrico Caruso; 3. Guiseppe de Luca; 4. Kirsten Flagstad; 5. Tito Gobbi; 6. Alexander Kipnis; 7. Lotte Lehmann; 8. Alfred Piccaver; 9. Ezio Pinza; 10. Rosa Ponselle; 11. Tito Schipa; 12. Luisa Tetrazzini; 13. Eva Turner; and 14. Frizt Wunderlich.

Douglas offers a charming style and an easy command and appreciation for the difficulties of singing - few writers get the difficulties as right as he does, and his chapter on Ponselle is especially fair for seeing beyond her outward 'Prima Donna' behavior and into the vocal issues driving her fears. As usual there are nicely blended anecdotes - these are, after all, men and women of the stage. To give but one example, I especially recommend his chapter on Kirsten Flagstad, which clears up any lingering misconceptions about her return to Norway during the Nazi occupation. Douglas rightly repeats Flagstad's ironic first lines at the Met following her banishment for perceived German sympathizing, Isolde's opening, "Wer wagt mich zu hohnen?" - 'Who dares to sneer at me?' And Douglas is old enough to give his opinions of Flagstad heard live, as well as his observations of her and a few of the more recent singers, such as Wunderlich, culled both live and during recording sessions.

Throughout each essay Douglas lists various available Cds as he cites arias and scenes and operas. His writing on voice is usally infallible - and he writes always without rancor - a rare trait in opera books that deal so closely with the actual art of voice.

This is a perfect book for reading a chapter at a time, and the suggested recordings allow anyone made curious easy leads to hearing what Douglas writes so well about. His easy conversational tone gives this book an endearing charm - one of my favorite books on opera and singers, and not to be missed by anyone interested in the great singers of the first half of the 20th century.

The book includes a 9 page index of artists and composers, and another full five page Index of Individual Numbers. There is also a list of Recommended Cds, one for Individual Singers, and One for Compilations.
A very short list of a few biographies is too short and now out of date.

A classic book, and one anyone interested in singers of the past should read.