Alice, in searching for Ernestine Schumann-Heink, I ran across this web-site: (Blicky) and wound up having an ear orgy! Singers from times gone by. If you're anything like me, don't click on it unless you have some time to blow! One of the first opera singers I listened to avidly was Beniamino Gigli, and I'd forgotten just how fantastic his voice was. Listening to Ezio Pinza also reminded me of an unfinished project: learning the Serenade from Don Giovanni and working out a guitar accompaniment for it (it ought to work pretty well!).

I dug through several web sites but couldn't really find anything definitive. I could be off about Cecilia Bartoli, but Marilyn Horne? I don't know. Listening to Schumann-Heink, I thought I could hear the same quality and texture to her voice that I hear in Marilyn Horne's. And the example of Marion Anderson was the same aria for Samson and Delilah that I cited above, and her voice actually sounds lighter than Marilyn Horne's, which came as a surprise to me. Am I missing something?

Don Firth