Text extracted from opening pages of book: GREAT WOMEN-SINGERS OF
MY TIME BY HERMAN KLEIN WITH A FOREWORD BY ERNEST NEWMAN WITH
SIXTEEN PORTRAITS NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON 9 COMPANY 1931 T1ETJENS AS
LUCREZlA BORGIA CONTENTS PAGE FOREWORD BY ERNEST NEWMAN i CHAPTER
I. THE VICTORIAN PRIMA DONNA ... 9 II. THERESA TIETJENS, TRUE
SUCCESSOR TO JENNY LlND . . ., . . .15 III. ADELINA PATTI: QUEEN OF
SONG ** . .31 IV. PAULINE LUCCA AND HER RENOWNED RIVALS . 50 V.
CHRISTINE NILSSON: THE SECOND SWEDISH NIGHTINGALE .66 VI. ILMA DI
MURSKA, THE BRILLIANT BUT ECCENTRIC 80 VII, THE ENCHANTING ZELIA
TREBELLI ... 89 VIII. EMMA ALBANI: CANADA'S FAMOUS SONGSTRESS 102
IX. LILLIAN NORDICA: THE AMERICAN SOPRANO . 113 X. THREE
LATE-VICTORIANS . . . . . .130 I, MARCBLLA SEMBRICH . . . .132 II.
NELLIE MELBA 141 IIL EMMA CALVE 149 XL SOME CELEBRATED CONTRALTOS .
. .156 L MARIETTA ALBONI . . . .156 IL JANET MONACH PATEY . . .
.162 IIL SOFIA SCALCHI 167 IV. GIULIA RAVOGLI 171 V. ERNESTINE
SCHUMANN-HEINK . .17? VI. ANTOINETTE STERLING . ., .183 VI CONTENTS
CHAPTER jAOB XIL GREAT WAGNERIAN SOPRANOS . . .186 I. AMALIA
MATERNA . . . . .190 II. MARIANNE BRANDT, . . - 194 III. ROSA
SUCKER 199 IV. THERESE VOGL 205 V. HEDWIG REICHER-KINDERMANN . .
208 VI. THERJ& SE MALTEN . . . . .211 VII. LILLI LEHMANN . . .
. .215 VIII, KATHARINA KLAFSKY .... 224 IX. MILKA TERNINA 230 INDEX
239 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THERESA TBBTJENS FACING FACE ADELINA
PATTI 32 PAULINE LUCCA . . . . . . - 50 CHRISTINE NILSSON 66 ZELIA
TREBELLI ....... 90 EMMA ALBANI ....... 102 LILLIAN NORDICA 114
MARCELLA SEMBRICH . . . - . .132 EMMA CALVE ....... 150 SOFIA
SCALCHI . . . . . .168 GIULIA RAVOGLI 17* ERNESTINE SCHUMANN-HEINE
178 ROSA SUCHER 200 HEDWIGREICHER-KINDERMANN . . - .208 LILLI
LEHMANN .'., ..-. 216 KATHARINA KLAFSKY . . 224 FOREWORD MR KLEIN
is of the opinion that on the whole the singers of to-day are not
the equals of those of tibirty to seventy years ago. It is easy to
turn that off with a smile and a quotation of laudator temporis
acti; but we would do well to reflect that Mr Klein has more right
to his opinion than we have to the contrary one, for while he has
heard all our crack singers, the majority of us have heard very few
of his. It is not everyone's memory that can go back in music for
something over sixty years; not every one who can recall, for
instance, having heard Tietjens in 1866. While Mr Klein has taken
all music for his province as befitted the one-time critic of the
Sunday Times he has always been par ticularly interested in
singing; and I know of no other living writer who is so equipped to
tell us of the vocal glories of the past and to compare them with
those of to-day. That the story is worth telling no one who has
read the following pages can doubt. As Mr Klein says, it is a jpity
the gramophone was not invented a few generations earlier than it
was. We might then have been able to hear the great singers of the
past for ourselves, and to get some faint idea of what the Fidelio
of Schroeder-Devrient was like, or Nilsson's Donna Elvira, or
Tietjens' Donna Anna, or Materna's Brynhilde, or Tltna. di Murska's
Queen of Night, or 2 FOREWO RD Malten's Kundry, or to know what
Patti sounded like in her best days. It stands to reason that our
fathers and grandfathers would not have raved as they did over
these and other singers unless they were something quite out of the
common; and to be out of the common, one suspects, meant more in
the sing ing world of that time than it does in ours, for the
standard was higher. It was an age when singing, qua singing,
counted for relatively more in opera than it does now, and that for
two reasons. In the first place, the singing itself, we can hardly
doubt, was technically better than ours; and in the second place,
the singer himself counted for relatively more in the total effect,
and the work for relatively less, than is the case now. In these
days we may admire our singers, but we do not worship them; for a
journalist even
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