Front matter
Reading edition
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Famous Singers of To-day and Yesterday
By Henry C. Lahee
ILLUSTRATED
Boston L. C. Page and Company (Incorporated) 1898
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Copyright, 1898 By L. C. Page and Company (INCORPORATED) Colonial Press: Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, U. S. A.
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
Prefacevii
I.From 1600 To 1800 A.D.11
II.Pasta To Mario41
III.Mario To Tietiens77
IV.Prima Donnas of the Fifties110
V.Prima Donnas of the Sixties143
VI.Prima Donnas of the Seventies186
VII.Prima Donnas of the Eighties220
VIII.Tenors and Baritones260
IX.Contraltos and Bassos296
Chronological Table of Famous Singers325
Index333
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ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Calvé As SantuzzaFrontispiece
Jenny Lind84
Jean de Reszke As Romeo98
Adelina Patti128
Nilsson As Valentine162
Lillian Nordica220
Melba As Ophelia244
Emma Eames258
Edouard de Reszke As Mephistopheles272
Alvary in Rigoletto280
Sofia Scalchi300
Plançon As Ramfis in Aida318
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PREFACE.
It has been the desire of the author to give, in a book of modest dimensions, as complete a record as possible of the "Famous Singers" from the establishment of Italian Opera down to the present day. The majority are opera singers, but in a few cases oratorio and concert singers of exceptional celebrity have been mentioned also.
To give complete biographical sketches of all singers of renown would require a work of several large volumes, and all that can be attempted here is to give a mere "bird's-eye view" of those whose names exist as singers of international repute.
For much information concerning the{8} earlier celebrities the author is indebted to Clayton's "Queens of Song," "Great Singers" by Ferris, and "The Prima Donna" by Sutherland Edwards, in which interesting volumes much will be found at length which is greatly condensed in this little volume. To Maurice Strakosch's "Souvenirs d'un Impresario," and to "Mapleson's Memoirs," the writer owes something also in the way of anecdote and fact concerning many singers of the latter half of this century.
As it is impossible to give biographical sketches of more than a comparatively small number of singers who have achieved renown, the work is supplemented by a chronological table which is more comprehensive. No such table can, however, be perfect. For singers of the past the following authorities have been used: "Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians," C. Egerton Lowe's "Chronological Cyclopædia{9} of Musicians and Musical Events," James D. Brown's "Biographical Dictionary of Musicians," and "A Hundred Years of Music in America."
Concerning singers of later times, who have risen to fame since those works were compiled, such items have been used as could be found in the newspapers and magazines of their day, and the information is of necessity imperfect. It is nevertheless hoped that the table may be of some use as carrying the history of famous singers some years beyond anything hitherto published in book form, and it has been the desire of the author to make the book interesting alike to student and amateur.
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