Garcia - Marchesi Tradition

Nicola Porpora (17 August 1686 – 3 March 1768) was a Neapolitan composer of Baroque operas (see opera seria) and teacher of singing, whose most famous singing student was the castratoFarinelli. Other students included composers Matteo Capranica, Giovanni Ansani, and Joseph Haydn.

Giovanni Ansani (February 11, 1744 - July 15, 1826) was an Italian tenor and composer. He was a spirited actor, and had a full, finely-toned, and commanding voice. According to Charles Burney, his voice was one of the sweetest yet most powerful tenors he ever heard; to which, according to Carlo Gervasoni,
he added a very rare truth of intonation, great power of expression,
and the most perfect method, both of producing the voice and of vocalization. (wiki)

Manuel Garcia I (1775 - 1832) Manuel del Pópulo Vicente García was, without any doubt, one of the
most talented musicians that Spain ever produced. He was one of opera
history's most celebrated tenors—the tenor for whom Rossini wrote the
Barber of Seville. He was a great singing teacher. Included among his
students were his own three children: Manuel Patricio Garcia
(1805-1906), baritone, teacher, inventor of the laryngoscope; Maria
Malibran (1808-1836), one of the most exciting prima donnas of the 1820s
and 1830s; and Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821-1910), accomplished singer,
teacher and composer.

Manuel Garcia II (1805 - 1905) studied as a baritone with his father and music theory with F.J.
Fétis. His voice was soon in decline and he retired early in 1829.
Subsequently he did administrative work in French military hospitals,
where he studied the physiological aspects of the voice. His “Mémoires
sur la voix humaine” (Paris, 1840) was the foundation of all subsequent
investigations into the voice, and his invention of the laryngoscope
(1855) brought him world fame. His “Traité complet de L’art du chant”
(1840) became a standard work. He was a professor at the Paris
Conservatoire (1847 - 1850), the Royal Academy of Music in London (1845 -
1895) and the Royal College of Music (1883 - 1895). His school of
singing produced some of the most famous singers of the 19th century.
His first wife was the noted soprano Eugénie (Eugenia) Mayer who
appeared as Abigaille in Nabucco (1848). Their son was the baritone
Gustave García who also enjoyed a teaching career. Manuel García II
reached the high age of 101. Singing Lessons London

Matilde Marchesi (1821 - 1913) studied voice with Manuel Garcia II in Paris and
became one of his most famous students. She taught at conservatories in
Cologne and Vienna and in 1881 opened her own school in Paris.
Ultimately Marchesi is remembered first and foremost as the teacher of a
surprising number of great singers, and also as the person who carried
the Bel Canto technique into the 20th century. Her ideas are still
studied and applied by singers all over the world. The most famous of
her students was perhaps Nellie Melba, but she also trained such
illustrious singers as Frances Alda, Emma Calvé, Selma Kurz and Emma
Eames. The Marchesi School produced great singers such as: Nelly Melba,
Estelle Liebling, Emma Navada and vicariously Marilyn Horne and Dame
Joan Sutherland who was first trained by her mother who had herself been
trained by Williston Walker, a student of Marchesi.

Frances Alda (1879 - 1952) was a New Zealand-born, Australian-raised operatic
soprano. She achieved fame during the first three decades of the 20th
century due to her outstanding singing voice, fine technique and
colourful personality—and frequent onstage partnerships at the New York
Metropolitan Opera with the illustrious tenor Enrico Caruso. She
studied with Marchesi in Paris and debuted there in 1904, but went on to
sing at Covent Garden, La Scala, the Met and many others. She was a
renowned teacher, and one of her students was Rose Bampton.

Rose Bampton (1907-2007) was a leading Soprano at the MET for over 18 years who
sang under great conductors like Stravinsky, Toscanini and appeared
several times with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra and
sang with such opera immortals as Lauritz Melchior, Helen Traubel, Rosa
Ponselle, Jan Peerce and Ezio Pinza. With Toscanini and the NBC Symphony
she recorded a broadcast version of "Fidelio" that remains in print.
And, can be heard in recordings of Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven Verdi
Strauss & Wagner. Ms. Bampton studied at the Curtis Institute of
Music with Queena Mario (a student of Sembrich), Horatio Connell (student of J. Stockhausen) and subsequently with Frances Alda
(Mathilde Marchesi) and Lotte Lehmann.
Georgyn Geetlein studied under Rose Bampton at the Manhattan School of music, NCSA
and privately for a total of 18 years. She also studied with Madame
Gregory at the Curtis Institute of Music. Ms. Geetlein sang with the
Metropolitan Opera Studio and the JOC and was in the original Maria
Callas Master Class series. Her professional operatic debut was in Italy
in the title role of Handel’s Agrippina under the baton of Sir John
Elliot Gardiner. Ms. Geetlein’s performances include 26 leading soprano
roles and 32 oratorio works, and she was on Broadway in a Tony award
winning show. Ms. Geetlein has been the teacher of Mr. Querns-Langley
for 12 years. As a matter or fact, both of Mr. Querns’ teachers from The
Curtis Institute of Music studied there with Madame Gregory. Madame
Gregory and Queena Mario (the teacher of Ms. Bampton at Curtis) both
studied there with Marcella Sembrich, who was herself a student of
Lamperti. Ms. Geetlein also studied with: Carolina Segrerra (teacher of
Montserrat Caballe), Rosa Ponselle (student of Enrico Caruso and teacher
of Sherill Milnes and Beverly Sills), Gino Bechi and Margaret Hoswell,
and was also featured in the original Maria Callas Master Class series.