The Sibyl Sanderson Story, an authorized biography by Jack Winsor Hansen Amadeus Press, ISBN 1-57467-094-8 Sibyl Sanderson was the soprano for whom Massenet composed Thais, and Esclamonde, and she was closely associated with his Manon. The composer rewrote key pages at her suggestion for its revival. Her career spanned only about ten years, and in that time she become the rage of Paris for her interpretations, her exceptional high voice: she sang a G in alt, very rare, and her charismatic personality and glamour. Taking her personal aspects one by one, this turns out to be one of the first truly modern careers. She started out as a talented amateur in San Francisco, and her socialite family forbade her to sing professionally. She arrived in Paris to finish off her education, as did may prominent young ladies of the period, in due course wangled her way into the Conservatoire, and then embarked on a stage career. She had little patience for technique, and sailed out of the Conservatoire without finishing her first year. Her stated aim as a kid was to go to Paris, find a composer who would write especially for her, and become famous. So she handily achieved her purpose when Massenet took her under his wing, and then rehearsed her young, unformed voice to death on Thais. She made him her coach and mentor, and he used her to promote his music with no thought for her vocal development. She was complicit in this when she abandoned her technical studies and put herself entirely in the hands of someone who probably did not have enough understanding of the singing voice. At one point in her whirlwind ascent she came to the conclusion that she needed help, and some lessons with Marchesi set her straight, though Sanderson did not persist with her new teacher long enough to really nail a complete technique. Throughout her short life on the stage she did some teacher hopping, and did not make vocal study a priority, but only resorted to teachers when she fell on hard times vocally. She was not much a fan of regular practice, and she loved to socialize and carouse. Sanderson had her own private demons, described here as either rampant PMS, or bipolar disorder, or both. She certainly spent without limit, was incredibly generous and impulsive. She self-medicated first with alcohol and later with morphine, and was in and out of sanatoriums to take cures (rehab, folks). She was by all accounts a wonderful artist, with a natural grasp of movement and acting who really inhabited the parts she sang. She was launched prematurely, taken up by the people who made good use her ability to fill seats, and soon developing the dreaded hole in the middle of the voice that results from lack of technical preparation and overuse of her exceptional high notes. This is a story that can be read as an inside look at a very glamorous star, darling of the press and public, as a history of a particularly exciting period in opera in Paris, and even as a story with a good deal of excitement and suspense. It is well researched and well written. I enjoyed every page, and her friends and colleagues are there as well: Emma Eames, Mary Garden, Saint Saens, Gounod, the great male singers of the day, jewelers, fans, and the fabled designer Worth, who costumed Sara Berhardt and Eleanora Duse as well. It is also a potent cautionary tale on many levels, with no punches pulled. I loved it! A few quibbles: Chansons grises (p. 306) might also mean tipsy songs, as the word is frequently used, and apt in that Masenet played the songs without taking his eyes off Sibyl. The author says that she was the first to sing to sing the G in alt publicly, but there are listing of several such feats witnessed a century before. Since pitch changed radically from place to place even in Sanderson's day, it is hard to know how high that G was anyway. There is a description of Sanderson's voice that connects it to the length of her vocal cords, and the size of her neck. In fact, no such direct connection can be made between the length of vocal cords and voice range. It is a myth that deserves to be extinguished. Range is a function of the ear. RP Back to Top