The Sybil Sanderson Story

Product Description For the first time in operatic history, this revealing and long-awaited biography uncovers the tragically short yet elegant life and glorious career of the beautiful California soprano Sybil Sanderson.
Educated privately as a child, she was sent to Paris at age 16 to study at the Paris Conservatory, following the breakup of her engagement to American journalism pioneer William Randolph Hearst.
In 1887, a chance meeting with a musical prodigy and one of the most highly regarded musicians in Europe—Jules Massenet—served as the catalyst to her stellar, decade-long success there. She became the first American singer for whom the major European composer Massenet wrote operatic works. Massenet, enraptured by Sanderson’s beauty, three-octave range, temperament, and histrionic ability, crafted Thaïs and Esclarmonde specifically for her. He also reconstructed his Manon to feature her high voice and to allow her to reinterpret the title role.
A great read for opera romantics of all generations and a true story with all the drama of period fiction, this biography is enhanced by Jack Winsor Hansen’s complete access to the Sanderson family archives and decades of dedicated research about her life in Europe and in the United States. It includes exclusive, previously unpublished correspondence, diaries, memoirs, and extensive interviews with the people who knew both Sanderson and Massenet, including Sanderson’s stepdaughter and opera star Mary Garden, whose career in the Paris opera was spearheaded by Sanderson.