As a voice teacher, and coming from the Garcia Method of voice myself, I appreciate the detail given regarding concepts of singing, to include breath control, vowel production, methods of instruction and various other topics by historic professionals of singing. There are even some short exercises and diagrams included, showing a sampling of rehearsal and warm up techniques used by some of the singers, and discussion of teaching styles which were, and are, considered trickery at best, and dangerous to voices as the worst. Not all of the singers will be familiar to the modern reader, unless you are well steeped in vocal history and performers prior to 1900. That said, much of what is shared illustrates that vocal technique of the past was based upon very solid principles of vocal production which enabled many stars to sing, for some well past middle age. This is a surprisingly thin paperback, which I had not expected for some reason, but it's size hasn't hampered it from providing insight into mastery of the voice, and many issues and items which are required for a long lived career relatively free from vocal damage.

Great for anyone who wants to learn about the careers but also how these learned their crafts.

A warning to begin with: the book is written in that dry academic way that was common in those days when these singers were interviewed. So, it isn't going to be "fun reading" in that sense.

The book is valuable for insight into what these great singers thought about singing, but the explanations were not so detailed as to teach you "how to sing" under their various methods of singing. One will often find that they actually don't agree with each other at all. The real issue to deal with when reading this book is you really have no clue, based on what is written, about the various vocal methods taught. The most famous is that of Mathilde Marchessi, who was the teacher of a number of the singers in the book. We have all her "scales" and the lot published by various companies now, but fully understanding her method today is really impossible. Though she taught a fully balanced and even scale, she required all her singers be ultimately very high lying Coloratura sopranos. That highwire palatal placement gave a lovely high sound but was unable to produce great volume or dramatic quality (see Melba's totaly failure and stupidity in singing the Siegfried Brunhilde).

If one is going to read the book, I recommend LISTENING to recordings of these various singers. The recordings will be horrible because they will be extremely old and from a time long before quality recording. So, remember, you are getting only a ghostly image of their voices. One will often HEAR what they are talking about, even if it is impossible to actually figure out how they did it.

Books like this are often written to show really interested and searching singers and voice students a glimpse of the past, when singing was supposedly at its height. It is like, if we could only see how they did it, and follow their "secrets", we will sound as good. Well, this book makes it clear that you will NEVER learn their secrets (even with singers like Caruso who are more forth-coming with what they tell you), simply because they never tell you those things they are doing which were wrong, and in spite of themselves and their technique, not because of it, they produce great sounds.

It is a great book to understand the singers of that day, but it must NEVER be considered a text book on singing. You will become more confused, more unable to figure out what to do, by reading the different and conflicting ideas of correct singing than imaginable. And if you listen to their singing, with open ears, you may actually learn that these singers quite often didn't follow their own advice, and often did things that we would call simply unmusical and in opposition to the style of the music they sang.

Their greatness is not in question, and that is because they proved by their lives and their careers that they were excellent (and if you see the list of equally great compeditors they sang against, you will understand just what they were up against to become the greatest of the great they were; there were great singers by the thousands in those days, even if they never became world famous or made it to the US -- which helped them become great and known here -- they were extremely good, and not all the best wanted to sing all over the world, many were happy being house singers, for in those days, there was financial security in that; and the public knew what was good singing and what was not; at this time, opera and concert singing was still the "Popular singing of the day" and those standards were expected of anyone becoming a singer or entering the world of professional singing; today such singing is confined to classical music, and the popular music of the day often requires no technique, not even good pitch or tone quality to become famous; but at this time, these singers were seen as the top of the list, a list which included many exquisite singers, and many of these singers were also great teachers -- Lilli Lehmann, who also wrote a book on singing, very informative, but again, leaving too much to the imagination of the reader because she could not provide recordings to demonstrate what she was saying --- and thus they tried to keep their art going).

As I said, a truly insightful book about the people who are now distant memories of a long forgotten time. But not a book designed to give you that "secret" to producing a great sound. it is nothing more than asking them to explain how they did what they did, and it is amazing how little they really could explain.