Joseph Hislop - Michael Turnbull

A biography of Joseph Hislop (1884-1977) Britain's finest international operative tenor in the golden age of singing. This biography shows how Hislop, though a leading artist, was neglected in this country: he had to go abroad to be discovered and he was eventually knighted by the Kings of Sweden and Denmark. As well as being a distinguished tenor who appeared in most of the great opera houses of the world including La Scala, Milan, Hislop had another career as a successful professor of singing, teaching Birgit Nilsson and Jussi Bjorling in Sweden, in addition to a host of British singers while attached to the Royal Opera House and Sadlers Wells. Turnbull offers a study of the British operatic world in the 20s and 30s as it affected the singers themselves, and his narrative is full of inside stories and humorous anecdotes from the world of opera. The biography also contains the first complete Hislop discography, compiled in conjunction with Alan Delly and Boris Semeonoff.;The introduction is by John B. Steane, a BBC Radio 3 presenter, critic and author.