I have no doubt that Dan H. Marek's Giovanni Battista Rubini and the Bel Canto Tenors: History and Technique will become one of the great works on that period and beyond. There is nothing out there that is even comparable. What an incredible amount of work he has put into it... quite an amazing accomplishment with wonderful content! -- Basil Walsh, author of Catherine Hayes: The Hibernian Prima Donna Dan Marek is a tenor. As such he is not supposed also to be an intellectual-we all know tenor jokes of every sort-but life plays funny tricks on us. Having studied and taught singing at length, Marek grew fascinated with the exploits of tenors from the nineteenth century. Giovanni Battista Rubini and the Bel Canto Tenors: History and Technique is only the first of several projects Marek has developed to help young singers today by making them more aware of nineteenth-century practice. We should all welcome contributions from singers of his calibre, whose direct acquaintance with the art of performance assists them greatly as they face the challenges of helping today's young singers come to grips with a performance style that does more than merely duplicate the recorded legacy of twentieth- and twenty-first-century singers. -- Philip Gossett, professor emeritus, University of Chicago If you are looking for rare and fascinating reading about early operatic tenors, Giovanni Battista Rubini and the Bel Canto Tenors: History and Technique is for you. Past information about these tenors has been sadly neglected, and how they laid the foundation for all singing. Dan Marek skillfully pulls back the curtains of time and cleverly explains the techniques of tenors from the baroque era onward; he then reveals how the great castrati were slowly replaced as the nineteenth-century composers Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini started writing their operas for tenors who could encompass the high tessitura bel canto roles written for them. To that end, Marek brings us the most exceptional and enlightened biography ever written in English about the legendary Giovanni Battista Rubini, remembered then as "The King of Tenors." Included in this book are 60 pages of exercises written by Rubini himself before 1840. Marek also devotes several chapters to the art of singing. A highly experienced professional tenor and teacher himself, he reveals important information that will be of great assistance to professional singers, teachers and students. This large beautiful book should be in every library. -- Clarissa Lablache Cheer, author, artist, scholar and archivist Just this morning I brought a copy of your book to the Rubini Foundation. It is really an important work and it will be shown to the board of directors. -- Antonio Maltempi, The Rubini Foundation The Rubini Foundation can only express pride in your great interest in our countryman Giovan Battista Rubini, who was without an equal as the greatest tenor of his epoch and would be one of the greatest today considering the well-documented vocal ability, which made him so great an artist on the European stage. The book that you have published is, in our opinion, the best representation of his artistic life and of great cultural interest. -- Alessandro Esposito, president, Fondazione Opere Pie Riunite Giovan Battista Rubini
