Lost Divas, Tubeuf, Andre. Published by Assouline. New York, 2005. Folio up to 15″ tall., 120 pp. with full page black and white photographs printed on high quality paper; rear pocket with accompanying CD produced specially for this publication. Photographic boards; issued without dustjacket. Volume is in fine condition and CD has not been used or removed.
Photographs (some unpublished) of forty glamorous opera singers of the past with accompanying informational essays. The Divas. Their success and their lives filled the gossip columns. Their fans loved them, grand dukes covered them in jewels. They represented both the splendorous excesses of an era of elegance and luxury, and its swan’s song. There is almost nothing that survives of them today. CD contains original recordings of Fanny Heldy singing “Air Du Miroir”, Mary Garden, who was the first Melisande in Debussy’s opera, Rosa Ponselle, Marie Gutheil-Schoder, who sang under Mahler at the Vienna Opera, Rosa Ponselle and others.
André Tubeuf was a French writer, philosopher, and music critic.
