Vocalists Books

Il Divo: Our Music, Our Journey, Our Words

Il Divo

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Il Divo: Our Music, Our Journey, Our Words 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The book is well written and the individual stories of each Il Divo singer brings the reader closer to a better appreciation of their music.

Best Book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I purchased this book as these 4 guys are the best. I have all there CD'S and Videos and this book was very interesting. I hope to be able to go see them in person when in the USA. I have to say that this is the best idea Simon Cowell ever came up with. I would recommend the book and vidoe's to everyone.

Phyllis Rutkowski
Westland Mi

Editorial Review:

In late 2004 Il Divo burst onto the music scene with their unique blend of opera and popular music. The group has since conquered the hearts of fans and the charts of nations around the world, selling 18 million albums worldwide and scoring an incredible 36 number-one records. This insider’s account features exclusive and intimate interviews with each member, as well as stunning, previously unreleased photographs. Rounded out by an afterword from the group's founder, Simon Cowell, this is an account no fan will want to be without.

The Voice: A Memoir

Thomas Quasthoff

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Voice is the profoundly inspiring memoir of one of the most sought after and admired classical singers in the world--a man who has arrived at the summit of his artistry by overcoming extraordinarily daunting odds.

Thomas Quasthoff, the German bass baritone, stands a shade over four feet tall, his severely underdeveloped arms and hands the result of thalidomide poisoning while he was in his mother's womb. But through stunning determination enlivened by an impish sense of human, Quasthoff has overcome his physical limitations and Dickensian childhood, cultivating his musical genius and thrilling classical music lovers with his sublime voice.

What shines through Quasthoff's astonishing story is his staunch refusal to wallow in self-pity, to see himself as a victim. Whether he is evoking a harrowing childhood marked by multiple agonizing surgeries, relating folksy family anecdotes, expressing his devotion to his students as a professor of voice, expounding on his love of jazz and American popular music (he is a great admirer of Stevie Wonder), or unburdening himself of his wickedly outspoken views on art and disability, Quasthoff's unerring sense of humanity, boisterous conviviality, and fierce honesty are always on display.

The Voice is utterly winning--a memoir to both marvel at and enjoy.

The Grove Book of Opera Singers

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Covering over 1500 singers from the birth of opera to the present day, this marvelous volume will be an essential resource for all serious opera lovers and an indispensable companion to the enormously successful Grove Book of Operas.
The most comprehensive guide to opera singers ever produced, this volume offers an alphabetically arranged collection of authoritative biographies that range from Marion Anderson (the first African American to perform at the Met) to Benedict Zak (the classical tenor and close friend and colleague of Mozart). Readers will find fascinating articles on such opera stars as Maria Callas and Enrico Caruso, Ezio Pinza and Fyodor Chaliapin, Lotte Lehmann and Jenny Lind, Lily Pons and Luciano Pavarotti. The profiles offer basic information such as birth date, vocal style, first debut, most memorable roles, and much more. But these articles often go well beyond basic biographical information to offer colorful portraits of the singer's personality and vocal style, plus astute evaluations of their place in operatic history and many other intriguing observations. Many entries also include suggestions for further reading, so that anyone interested in a particular performer can explore their life and career in more depth. In addition, there are indexes of singers by voice type and by opera role premiers. The articles are mostly drawn from the acclaimed Grove Music Online and have been fully revised, and the book is further supplemented by more than 40 specially commissioned articles on contemporary singers.
A superb new guide from the first name in opera reference, The Grove Book of Opera Singers is a lively and authoritative work, beautifully illustrated with color and black-and-white pictures. It is an essential volume--and the perfect gift--for opera lovers everywhere.

The Pearl: A True Tale of Forbidden Love in Catherine the Great's Russia

Douglas Smith

Amazon Price: $23.10 List Price: $35.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Yale University Press Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $20.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Filled with a remarkable cast of characters and set against the backdrop of imperial Russia, this tale of forbidden romance could be the stuff of a great historical novel. But in fact The Pearl tells a true tale, reconstructed in part from archival documents that have lain untouched for centuries. Douglas Smith presents the most complete and accurate account ever written of the illicit love between Count Nicholas Sheremetev (1751-1809), Russia’s richest aristocrat, and Praskovia Kovalyova (1768-1803), his serf and the greatest opera diva of her time.

Blessed with a beautiful voice, Praskovia began her training in Nicholas’s operatic company as a young girl. Like all the members of Nicholas’s troupe, Praskovia was one of his own serfs. But unlike the others, she utterly captured her master’s heart. The book reconstructs Praskovia’s stage career as “The Pearl” and the heartbreaking details of her romance with Nicholas—years of torment before their secret marriage, the outrage of the aristocracy when news of the marriage emerged, Praskovia’s death only days after delivering a son, and the unyielding despair that followed Nicholas to the end of his life. Written with grace and style, The Pearl sheds light on the world of the Russian aristocracy, music history, and Russian attitudes toward serfdom. But above all, the book tells a haunting story of love against all odds.

(20080518)

Franco Corelli: Prince of Tenors

SEGHERS RENE

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

His exceptional good looks made him a matinee idol, and Franco Corelli - the Prince of Tenors - was dubbed ""Mr. Soldout"" for 20 consecutive years. In 1958, just seven years after beginning his career, he was already the highest-paid tenor in Italy. Following his Met debut in 1961, he was celebrated as the greatest tenor in the world, a position that he retained until his departure from the Met in 1975. His charismatic performances in such operas as La Vestale and Fedora (both in collaboration with Maria Callas), coupled with a formidable mystique, as well as a number of notorious and colorful incidents, including his real-life sword fight with Boris Christoff in Rome, the Callas walkout there, the beating up of a spectator in Naples, and the alleged biting of Birgit Nilsson on a Boston tour of Turandot, created a mania for Corelli. Nearly a decade in the making, this definitive biography is based on the author's extensive research of theater archives and interviews with the opera star's numerous friends, family members, colleagues (Nilsson, Pavarotti, and many others), as well as the management of some of the world's leading opera houses.

Halfway Home : My Life 'til Now

Ronan Tynan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Yes, I am a singer. But I am also a horseman, an athlete, and a doctor. I am a son, a brother, and a friend. I can sing as I do only because of the life that I've led. With each decade, I've found myself in very different, evermore challenging arenas, but the many stages of my life have always intertwined. I have moved from one stage to the next as if on a wild steeplechase, keeping my eye fixed straight ahead and above me. If there is a single line connecting all the episodes and main events of my life it is this -- a gift both given and received.

-- from the Introduction

In Halfway Home, a beautifully written memoir, Ronan Tynan, a member of the enormously popular Irish Tenors, shares his remarkable story of overcoming adversity and attaining worldwide success in several different areas.

Diagnosed with a lower limb disability at birth, Ronan Tynan had his legs amputated below the knee when he was twenty years old. Eight weeks later, he was climbing the stairs of his college dorm, and within a year, he was winning races in the Paralympic Games, amassing eighteen gold medals and fourteen world records. After becoming the first disabled person ever admitted to the National College of Physical Education, he served a short stint in the prosthetics industry and began a new career in medicine. He continued his studies at Trinity College, where he specialized in orthopedic sports injuries.

After earning his medical degree, Ronan chose music for the next act in his life. Less than one year after he began studying voice, he won both the John McCormick Cup for Tenor Voice and the BBC talent show Go for It. He went on to win the prestigious International Operatic Singing Competition in France, and in 1998 his debut Sony album, My Life Belongs to You, became a top-five hit in England within just two weeks and eventually went platinum. Later that year, he was invited to join The Irish Tenors, furthering a journey that started in a small Irish village and has brought him to the world's grandest stages.

In Halfway Home, Tynan movingly describes his life story, which Barbara Walters called "so amazing you may find it hard to believe."

Never Sang for Hitler: The Life and Times of Lotte Lehmann, 1888-1976

Michael H. Kater

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Beloved Lehmann, warts and all 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

To date this book is the "definitive Lehmann" biography. Previous books did not have access to sources now available, or were oriented to Lehmann, "The Beloved Voice". They really cannot be compared to this, as they had other agendas in mind. Thus we do no find detailed analyses of her roles or her recordings, something thoroughly done by Lehmann herself and others, but much more about her personal life. There is more space devoted to Lehmann in exile, her pupils, her family life, and a fuller account of her behavior towards the Nazis, and the famous meeting with Goering. Not all of this is complimentary, far from it. This is about Lehmann, an intelligent but fallible human being making her way thru a competitive profession during a turbulent era. But when all is done, Kater does tell us what is that makes Lehmann still a beloved icon by many, even those who know only her records. It is not just the unique vocal timbre, but her ability to personify each piece she sings so that we encounter the "Ewigweibliche" of German song, with her uncanny and natural gift to infuse all she sings with the most deeply felt tones. I can only think of one or two others who can compare with her in this regard. That is what Lehmann's greatness is all about.

Editorial Review:

Lotte Lehmann ranks among the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century. She was a favorite of Richard Strauss, and over her lifetime became the friend of other famous men: Bruno Walter, Arturo Toscanini and Thomas Mann. She had a famous encounter with Hermann Göring, in which he claimed to want to make her the foremost singer in Nazi Germany. By the time of her final performance in 1951, she was considered one of the finest singing actresses of all time. Rather than a traditional biography, this book aims to be both a descriptive narrative of Lehmann's life and a critical analysis of the interconnections of the artist and society. Kater describes the varying phases of Lehmann's life, as well as the sociocultural settings in which she finds herself - whether in the Wilhemine Empire, First Austrian Republic, Nazi Germany, or the United States. Kater's use of Lehmann's personal and other papers reshapes much of what is known about her life and career.

The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer

Renee Fleming

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From Publishers Weekly Calling this candid account "the autobiography of my voice," soprano Fleming details the years of study it took to master the art of vocal production and the discipline that brought her international renown. A former manager deemed her "the single most ambitious singer he has ever known," and given the tenacity with which she faced early setbacks—"I have a noble history of being rejected from a lot of places," she writes—his comment is understandable. After her first big break in 1990 (as the Countess in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro with the Houston Grand Opera), Fleming's rise to the top was steady. But she's quick to point out that the life of an opera star is not always glitter and glamour; the business side of singing—scheduling performances, arranging interviews and recordings, choosing a repertoire and marketing herself—is arduous. Although Fleming offers glimpses into her personal life, touching on her failed marriage and her loving relationship with her two daughters and concluding with a chapter describing what she experiences backstage during a Metropolitan Opera production, this is not a deeply intimate autobiography full of childhood vignettes, personal anecdotes and behind-the-curtains gossip. Instead, it's a realistic portrait of what it takes to succeed and a volume intriguing for its advice and honesty. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Interview with Renee Fleming
Renee Fleming speaks about recent projects, including The Inner Voice and her recent Handel CD, in our interview.

Maria Callas: The Woman behind the Legend

Arianna Huffington

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The Best Biography I've Ever Read 5 out of 5 stars.
18 of 18 people found this review helpful.

I can't believe no one has reviewed this book...so although I have never written one before here goes....
Critics say that this is the best book on the intensely private yet captivating Maria Callas. I'll go farther than that and say that it is the best biography I have personally EVER read and I am a huge fan of biographies. Yet, I can't quite put my finger on why its so good. Maybe its because Arianna Stassinopoulos shows a profound empathy for the diva or perhaps it's because she interviewed practically every living person who knew her. Maria Callas, the love interest of Aristotle Onassis who later dropped her for Jacqueline Kennedy, and of course the greatest dramatic opera singer who ever lived, is brought to life right in front of you in this fantastic, well ..... just read this book. You'll love it as much as I do.

Editorial Review:

This is the story of Maria Callas, who transformed herself from a chubby, painfully shy girl into a magnificent celebrated soprano, the likes of which we've yet to see again.

The World of the Trapp Family

William Anderson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great book 5 out of 5 stars.
42 of 48 people found this review helpful.

This book is a really great behind-the-scenes type book about the real Von Trapp family. Fans of the movie may not like it as much, because there isn't very much stuff written about the making of the SOM. However, it really gives you a very clear picture of the way the story reall was without detracting from the magic of the movie.

This book is great.... 5 out of 5 stars.
15 of 21 people found this review helpful.

....because I find so many information about the Trapp Familiy which I don't know. I saw the two german movies from 1956 und 1958 and the american from 1965, and I like all this films.

The pictures make it easy to read.

But there is something, that I don't like. Martina, who died in 1951. Maria Augusta wrote only one and a half sentences about her stepdaughter. Why had she done that ?

Good, that I've read "Yesterday, Today and Forever", so I know the tragedy of Martina's death.

...

Editorial Review:

Immortalized in "The Sound of Music", the Von Trapp Family fled Hitler-invaded Austria to start new lives in America as the Trapp Family Singers. Their dramatic story is updated with information about the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont, where the singers conduct music camps and plan their world concert tours.