GREAT SINGERS
FAUSTINA BORDONI TO HENRIETTA SONTAG
FIRST SERIES
BYGEORGE T. FERRIS
1891
Copyright, 1879, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
NOTE.
In compiling and arranging the material which enters into the followingsketches of distinguished singers, it is only honest to disclaim anyoriginality except such as may be involved in a picturesque presentationof facts. The compiler has drawn freely from a great variety of sources,and has been simply guided by the desire to give the reading publicsuch a digest of the more important incidents in the careers ofthe celebrities treated of as should be at once compact, racy, andaccurate. To serve this purpose the opinions and descriptions of writersand critics contemporary with the subjects have been used at length, andno means overlooked to give the sketches that atmosphere of freshnesswhich is the outcome of personal observation. All that a compilation ofthis kind can hope to effect is best gained in preserving this kindof vividness, instead of revamping impressions and opinions intosecond-hand forms. Pains have been taken to verify dates and facts, andit is believed they will be found trustworthy.
It will be observed that many well-known singers have been omitted, ortreated only incidentally: among the earlier singers, such as Anas-tasiaRobinson, Mingotti, Anna Maria Crouch, and Anna Selina Storace; amongmore recent ones, such as Mmes. Fodor, Cinti-Damoreau, Camperese,Pisaroni, Miss Catherine Stephens, Mrs. Paton-Wood, Mme. Dorus-Gras, andCornelie Falcon. This omission has been indispensable in a work whosepurpose has been to cover only the lives of the very great namesin operatic art, as the question of limit has been inflexible. Asupplementary volume will give similar sketches of later celebrities.
The works from which material has been most freely drawn are as follows:Bernard's "Retrospection of the Stage"; Dr. Burney's various historiesof music; Chorley's "Thirty Years' Musical Recollections"; Dibdin's"Complete History of the English Stage"; Ebers's "Seven Years of theKing's Theatre"; Fétis's "Biographie des Musiciens"; Hogarth's "MusicalDrama"; Sutherland Edwards's "History of the Opera"; Arsène Houssaye's"Galerie des Portraits"; Michael Kelly's "Reminiscences"; Lord MountEdgcumbe's "Musical Reminiscences"; Oxberry's "Dramatic Biography andHistrionic Anecdotes"; Mrs. Clayton's "Queens of Song"; Arthur Simpson's"Memoirs of Catalani"; and Grove's "Dictionary of Music and Musicians."