Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available by The Internet Archive.) FAMOUS SINGERS LAHEE [Illustration: _Calve as Santuzza_.] Famous Singers of To-day and Yesterday By Henry C. Lahee _ILLUSTRATED_ [Illustration: logo] Boston L. C. Page and Company (Incorporated) 1898 _Copyright, 1898_ BY L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY (INCORPORATED) Colonial Press: Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, U. S. A. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE PREFACE vii I. FROM 1600 TO 1800 A.D. 11 II. PASTA TO MARIO 41 III. MARIO TO TIETIENS 77 IV. PRIMA DONNAS OF THE FIFTIES 110 V. PRIMA DONNAS OF THE SIXTIES 143 VI. PRIMA DONNAS OF THE SEVENTIES 186 VII. PRIMA DONNAS OF THE EIGHTIES 220 VIII. TENORS AND BARITONES 260 IX. CONTRALTOS AND BASSOS 296 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF FAMOUS SINGERS 325 INDEX 333 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE CALVE AS SANTUZZA _Frontispiece_ JENNY LIND 84 JEAN DE RESZKE AS ROMEO 98 ADELINA PATTI 128 NILSSON AS VALENTINE 162 LILLIAN NORDICA 220 MELBA AS OPHELIA 244 EMMA EAMES 258 EDOUARD DE RESZKE AS MEPHISTOPHELES 272 ALVARY IN RIGOLETTO 280 SOFIA SCALCHI 300 PLANCON AS RAMFIS IN AIDA 318 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 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.