"I do congratulate Roger Neill in bringing out a book on Mathilde Marchesi. It is high time. She was one of the famous names in music in the second half of the nineteenth century. She was intimate with Rossini, Liszt, Verdi, Delibes, Gounod, Thomas, Saint-Saëns and Massenet all of whom greatly admired her and her school of bel canto. Legions ... Read moreof her pupils sang in the opera houses of the world and have influenced singers right up to the present. Names such as Nelly Melba, Emma Nevada, Emma Eames, Emma Calvé, Gabrielle Krauss, Ilma di Murska, Etelka Gerster, Amy Castles and Frances Alda will surely never be forgotten." - Richard Bonynge, AC CBE "A fascinating look at the relationship between great Australian diva Nellie Melba and her legendary vocal teacher, Mathilde Marchesi. Roger Neill traces Marchesi’s phenomenal legacy from nineteenth-century Vienna and Paris to twenty-first-century Sydney." Leo Schofield, AM Show Less