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:
“The victors and the vanquished then the storm it tossed and tore,
As hard they strove, those worn-out men, upon that surly shore;
Dead Nelson and his half-dead crew, his foes from near and far,
Were rolled together on the deep that night at Trafalgar!”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“Are you suggesting that we reopen the Opera with a murder as an added attraction?”
—Eric Taylor, Leroux, and Arthur Lubin. Lecours (Fritz Feld)
“[Research has found that] ... parents whose children were “baby altruists” by two years firmly prohibited any child aggression against others. Adults not only restated their rule against hitting, for example, but they let the little one know that they would not tolerate the child hurting another.”
—Alice Sterling Honig (20th century)