Victorian Vocalists
Victorian Vocalists is a masterful and entertaining collection of 100 biographies of mid- to late-19th-century singers and stars.
Kurt Gänzl paints a vivid picture of the Victorian operatic and concert world, revealing the backgrounds, journeys, successes, failures and misdemeanours of these singers. This volume is not only an outstanding reference work for anyone interested in vocalists of the era, but also a compelling, meticulously researched picture of life in the vast shark tank that was Victorian music.
Kurt Gänzl is one of the most important chroniclers of the world's history of musical theatre. His numerous works on the subject include The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre (1994, 2001), The British Musical Theatre (1986), The Musical: A Concise History (1997), Gänzl's Book of the Musical Theatre (1988) and biographies of such artists as Lydia Thompson (2002), Willie Gill (2002) and Emily Soldene (In Search of a Singer, 2007).