The Grove Book of Opera Singers
£13.96
an acceptable reference which leaves much to be desired - The book, though commendable, fails to put opera singers in their true historical perspective, dwelling unduly upon many singers who are mere nonentities. A few truly historic singers, on the contrary, are unfairly made short work of. Giacomo Lauri-Volpi is a case in point: only 27 lines (taken almost verbatim -and without updating- from the Rosenthal & Warrack s Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera) are the stingy alms given to that colossus of singing, whose career spanned almost sixty years: the reader who wants to know the truth about Lauri-Volpi s role in operatic history, has to resort to the Guide de l opéra ( French edition of the Rosental & Warrack s reference, up-to-dated and enhanced by R.Mancini and J.J.Rouveroux).Pasquale Amato and Carlo Galeffi -those Matterhorns among baritones- have to content themselves, respectively, with 30 and 26 lines,: while it takes no less than 45 to immortalize Roberto Alagna s life and career. Tito Gobbi (a superlative actor but an indifferent vocalist) scores an amazing 39, the unparalleled Titta Ruffo, the lion, only 41: and Gobbi, for all his artistry, couldn t hold a candle to Titta Ruffo. On a closer examination of the dictionary, I detected other flaws. First of all, the writers of some entries cite as cross reference an infamous two-volume work written by a man (the name of whom I have no desire to recall) who can most appropriately be defined as the Florence Foster Jenkins of critics.In addition to the above mentioned shortcomings, the book commits many unforgivable sins of omission: outstanding singers as Francesco Marconi, Giuseppe Kaschmann, Antonio Magini Coletti, Giuseppe Danise, Domenico Viglione Borghese are conspicuous by their absence. Just to give the reader a vague idea of the importance of the singers so unjustly ostracized, I will add a few details about their voices and careers.Puccini proclaimed Viglione-Borghese the prince of all Sheriffs (and actually wrote this expression on the score of La fanciulla del West owned by the singer). As for Giuseppe Danise we must defer to Rosa Ponselle s reliable judgement: Giuseppe Danise was an exceptional singer, he ranked up there with Giuseppe de Luca. In fact, it would be hard to choose between them for which one had the finer technique ( Drake, Rosa Ponselle: A Centenary Biography, p.106)The exceptionally versatile Antonio Magini-Coletti was a pupil of Francesco Graziani and sang opposite Jean De Reszke, Lilli Lehmann, Fernando De Lucia. He sang at Teatro alla Scala alternating with Victor Maurel. Clemens Hoslinger, in the liner notes to the CD Lebendige Vergangenheit 89518 writes about him: Antonio Magini Coletti s baritone voice ranks among the most magnificent vocal instruments to our knowledge. He left a recorded legacy which can t be ignored. Kaschmann was a truly historic singer, one of the greatest baritones of the late XIX century. His production was perfect, his range astonishing, his acting skills comparable only to Chaljapin s. Verdi, in a letter to Giulio Ricordi, puts him in the same class as Battistini (although in a slightly disparaging way: Kaschmann and Battistini -I am told- are two singers a little bit sugary and they need musical phrases which are not to be found in the part of Jago).Francesco Marconi, according to Max de Schauensee, (see his liner notes to the LP Rococo R22) remains a prominent figure even among the great nineteenth-century tenors: Roberto Stagno, Angelo Masini, Juliano Gayarre, Italo Campanini and Francesco Tamagno. Rodolfo Celletti writes that Marconi s voice had no rivals, in Italy, until the coming of Caruso (Le Grandi Voci, coll. 508-509). The celebrated singing teacher J.H.Duval (Victor Maurel s favorite pupil) wrote : The Roman tenor, Marconi, had a voice of silver, a perfect free-flowing stream of silver throughout, and seemed limitless on the extreme upper notes (see: The Secrets of Svengali on Singing, Singers, Teachers and Critics, New York, James T. White & Co, 1922, p.74).Both the Guide de l opéra and The Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia (edited by David Hamilton) don t forget to mention Marconi, Danise, Kaschmann and Magini-Coletti. Everything considered, The Grove Book of Opera Singers has no claim on my unqualified approval. However, I feel it my duty to admit that some of the entries (especially those written by Rodolfo Celletti, Desmond Shawe-Taylor, J.B.Steane and Elisabeth Forbes) deserve the highest praise and make wonderful reading.