Great Singers, Second Series

Operatic fame takes a personal shape in George T. Ferris's sketches of singers from Maria Felicia Malibran to Theresa Titiens. The collection traces musical training, first appearances, celebrated roles and the reactions of audiences and critics. Its chapters include Giulia Grisi, Pauline Viardot, Marietta Alboni and Jenny Lind, placing their careers alongside those of fellow performers whose work helped shape the stage around them.

Anecdotes make the discussion of voices and acting concrete. In the account of Viardot's Berlin engagement, she undertakes two roles in one opera when another singer falls ill, changing costume between scenes. Ferris also considers her musical imagination and her association with Meyerbeer. For readers interested in opera history, these biographies show how vocal skill, dramatic interpretation and public enthusiasm combined to build a singer's reputation, while preserving the critical opinions through which earlier audiences understood that art.