Nelson Eddy: The Opera Years is a biography by Sharon Rich, with a chapter featuring Jeanette MacDonald's opera career.
Before he became a movie star, Nelson Eddy was an opera star. This photo-filled book is a study of that career and a compilation of virtually every review, interview and article written about him from 1922 until 1935, when his success in the MGM musical Naughty Marietta co-starring soprano Jeanette MacDonald convinced him that his future was in Hollywood. Included are reproduced pages and clippings from his personal scrapbooks with his handwritten notations and many rare photographs, all his operas (including some tenor and bass roles), his oratorios, radio, earliest interviews and insight into his youthful romances.
An extra chapter includes Jeanette MacDonald's opera career (1943–45), plus coverage and rare photos of their operatic scenes in film, including the lost "Tosca" Act II from Maytime. There are also excerpts from an unproduced movie script written by Nelson on the life of Feodor Chaliapin, in which he had planned to play dual roles—Chaliapin and himself.
Famous quotes containing the words nelson, opera and/or years:
“From now on, if I ever get to burn another newspaper, I’ll remember what a few cents can buy.”
—Alvah Bessie, Ranald MacDougall, and Lester Cole. Raoul Walsh. Captain Nelson (Errol Flynn)
“The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.”
—Jean De La Bruyère (1645–1696)
“In former years it was said that at three o’clock in the afternoon all sober persons were rounded up and herded off the grounds, as undesirable. The tradition of insobriety is still carefully preserved.”
—For the State of Vermont, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)