Dame Eva Turner A Life on the High Cs Linda Esther Gray 9780955550522 Books
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Dame Eva Turner A Life on the High Cs Linda Esther Gray 9780955550522 Books
During a visit to the USA back in 1999, Richard Bebb told Ward Marston and me about the time he escorted Dame Eva to Italy for a seminar on singing. Apparently every singer in the country along with an equal number of teachers attended, NONE of which had ever even heard of her. After he, a trusted friend, chose and played her recordings of In questa Reggia, O patria mia, and D'amor sull'ali rosee, there was at first disbelief, then great applause, then utter pandemonium. People cheering, screaming, and hollering without restraint. When the applause died down, the singers and teachers were so overwhelmed that many were in tears, and some were on their KNEES in front of the seated Dame Eva, paying sincere homage to her.She truly was the greatest "unknown" and least recorded "great soprano" in history. Linda Esther Gray's book is a labor of love and gives a relatively complete picture of Dame Eva, even if few biographies of any singer cover everything.
The soprano surely had her quirks, but what a voice! Philip Hope-Wallace said it best in a review reprinted in the book, talking about her very last Turandots which took place during the 1947/48 Covent Garden season. She was 56 and past her best. After many other critics complained about her enormous blue and gold train "that would nearly carpet Piccadilly Circus" and must have weighed a ton, Hope-Wallace goes on to say:
"what did move us was the return of Eva Turner to a role in which she had no rival in the world at one time (and for all I know even now has not). That sensational performance some 20 years ago has often been repeated and extolled. The sheer noise, intensity and punch of the high B and C in the big second act piece defy description. It was like someone hoisting steel girders and throwing them across the auditorium. One gaped at the upward speed of the phrasing, with the throat opening like a great crater. In many ways it was the most thrilling operatic performance of our day. Well, Miss Turner would be the last person to wish me to pretend that it is now the same thing. But you can hear enough to hear what it was. The voice is still wonderfully loud, piercing and majestic, and the famous train is carried in the grand manner."
It was also, in my opinion, THE most beautiful of all the titanic soprano voices. Perfect limpid forward placement, dead center intonation, and vowel purity which has never been equaled let alone surpassed. She sings a stunning pure "ee" vowel on the word "grido"...on a high B natural!
Eva Turner's part in the Serenade to Music is usually the soprano 1 line. In the soft opening only Isobel Baillie and Stiles Allen are sop1, but for the second phrase "soft stillness and the night" Elsie Suddaby and E.T. are back on sop1, with I.B. on sop2, and S.A. on sop3! The solos for S.A., I.B., and E.T. all go to high A, but E.T.'s solo line is the most "soaring" and the most heavily orchestrated. Every single soloist is perfect in this most moving, lovely and unique piece of music, and despite limited recording technique, the "original cast recording" is still the best of all. A true treasure.
The book comes with a Nimbus CD, The Opera World of Eva Turner, but only 4 of the tracks are E.T. Fortunately the 3 selections Mr.Bebb played at the seminar are included, so you can hear what all the cheering and hollering was about! It's a well-researched and informative book for all Dame Eva fans, and I'm very grateful to Linda Esther Gray (who was herself a GREAT Isolde) for writing it. It's also getting harder to procure, so buy it now if you can.
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Dame Eva Turner A Life on the High Cs Linda Esther Gray 9780955550522 Books Reviews
DAME EVA TURNER is essentially a gossipy memoir by one of Turner's vocal students, soprano Linda Esther Gray, While the degree of sophistication in writing is somewhat in question, the information about this almost forgotten British singer and her influence on the times during which she reigned is invaluable. According to the backup data Dame Eva Turner (10 March 1892 - 16 June 1990) 'was an English dramatic soprano with an international reputation. Her strong, steady and well-trained voice was renowned for its clarion power in Italian and German operatic roles. Born in Lancashire England she studied with contralto Clara Butt, and then from 1911 to 1914 she studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She began her career as a chorister with the Carl Rosa Opera Company and steadily took on larger roles such as Kate Pinkerton and the lead role of Cio Cio San in Madama Butterfly, Micaela in Carmen, Musetta in Puccini's La bohème, Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, Freia in Das Rheingold, Elsa in Lohengrin, Brünnhilde in Der Ring des Nibelungen, Leonora in La forza del destino, Leonora in Fidelio, Eva in Die Meistersinger, and the title roles in Aida, Tosca and Thaïs. In 1924 after an audition for the La Scala company in Milan, she was engaged by its principal conductor Arturo Toscanini as Freia and Sieglinde for the La Scala Ring Cycle of 1924-25. The role for which she was, and remains, most famous, was the title role in Turandot. She was in the audience for the 1926 premiere at La Scala and first sang it in December that year at the Teatro Grande in Brescia seven months after its premiere. In 1928 she performed it at the Covent Garden (also playing Aida and Santuzza during the season), and in 1929 she took the part at La Scala. Recordings of her Turandot recorded live at Covent Garden in 1937 with Giovanni Martinelli as Calaf and John Barbirolli conducting remained unissued at the time but were released in the 1980s. When Ralph Vaughan Williams composed his 'Serenade to Music' for 16 leading singers of the day he included lines for Eva Turner, but separated them from those for the other three sopranos so that her mighty voice rose instead from among the mezzos. In 1948, she retired from the stage. The following year she was offered the position of Visiting Professor of Voice at the University of Oklahoma, and a one-year contract was extended for nine years. She returned to London in 1959 where she was appointed Professor of Singing at the Royal Academy of Music, a position she held until aged well into her 80s. Her style of teaching was too forthright for some (Rita Hunter found it too demanding), but it produced such successful students as Amy Shuard, Roberta Knie, Janet Coster, and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. Shuard and later Dame Gwyneth Jones, both of whom had success in the role of Turandot, studied this part with her.'
So much for a brief history of this talented but enigmatic soprano. What Linda Esther Gray does in her hefty book is give us the back stage gossip and activities of this strange but gifted performer she was a thrifty woman, keeping immaculate daily records of her income and expenditures, had two live in companions who doted on her, had a list of traits that many mimicked including her tendency to exaggerate her speaking voice with rolled rrrrrrs, and felt neglected when the Metropolitan Opera ignored her until too late in her vocal state to make a statement that was memorable in a positive sense.
The book is full of anecdotes but it is equally rich in a student's adoration for the diva. Despite its shortcomings DAME EVA TURNER does pay tribute to one of the great voices of the past who should, indeed, be remembered. Grady Harp, September 11
During a visit to the USA back in 1999, Richard Bebb told Ward Marston and me about the time he escorted Dame Eva to Italy for a seminar on singing. Apparently every singer in the country along with an equal number of teachers attended, NONE of which had ever even heard of her. After he, a trusted friend, chose and played her recordings of In questa Reggia, O patria mia, and D'amor sull'ali rosee, there was at first disbelief, then great applause, then utter pandemonium. People cheering, screaming, and hollering without restraint. When the applause died down, the singers and teachers were so overwhelmed that many were in tears, and some were on their KNEES in front of the seated Dame Eva, paying sincere homage to her.
She truly was the greatest "unknown" and least recorded "great soprano" in history. Linda Esther Gray's book is a labor of love and gives a relatively complete picture of Dame Eva, even if few biographies of any singer cover everything.
The soprano surely had her quirks, but what a voice! Philip Hope-Wallace said it best in a review reprinted in the book, talking about her very last Turandots which took place during the 1947/48 Covent Garden season. She was 56 and past her best. After many other critics complained about her enormous blue and gold train "that would nearly carpet Piccadilly Circus" and must have weighed a ton, Hope-Wallace goes on to say
"what did move us was the return of Eva Turner to a role in which she had no rival in the world at one time (and for all I know even now has not). That sensational performance some 20 years ago has often been repeated and extolled. The sheer noise, intensity and punch of the high B and C in the big second act piece defy description. It was like someone hoisting steel girders and throwing them across the auditorium. One gaped at the upward speed of the phrasing, with the throat opening like a great crater. In many ways it was the most thrilling operatic performance of our day. Well, Miss Turner would be the last person to wish me to pretend that it is now the same thing. But you can hear enough to hear what it was. The voice is still wonderfully loud, piercing and majestic, and the famous train is carried in the grand manner."
It was also, in my opinion, THE most beautiful of all the titanic soprano voices. Perfect limpid forward placement, dead center intonation, and vowel purity which has never been equaled let alone surpassed. She sings a stunning pure "ee" vowel on the word "grido"...on a high B natural!
Eva Turner's part in the Serenade to Music is usually the soprano 1 line. In the soft opening only Isobel Baillie and Stiles Allen are sop1, but for the second phrase "soft stillness and the night" Elsie Suddaby and E.T. are back on sop1, with I.B. on sop2, and S.A. on sop3! The solos for S.A., I.B., and E.T. all go to high A, but E.T.'s solo line is the most "soaring" and the most heavily orchestrated. Every single soloist is perfect in this most moving, lovely and unique piece of music, and despite limited recording technique, the "original cast recording" is still the best of all. A true treasure.
The book comes with a Nimbus CD, The Opera World of Eva Turner, but only 4 of the tracks are E.T. Fortunately the 3 selections Mr.Bebb played at the seminar are included, so you can hear what all the cheering and hollering was about! It's a well-researched and informative book for all Dame Eva fans, and I'm very grateful to Linda Esther Gray (who was herself a GREAT Isolde) for writing it. It's also getting harder to procure, so buy it now if you can.
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