Author(s): Roger Neill

Music

The fascinating true story of a family of singers and their pioneering opera company. Two became international stars in Europe and America, while another went to prison in San Francisco for robbery. Extraordinarily, twelve of the children and grandchildren of Martin and Fanny Simonsen became professional singers, several of them performing members of the Simonsens' pioneering opera company, which toured Australia and New Zealand in the late nineteenth century. Their home base was a noisy house of song at St Kilda, Melbourne. Two of them became international stars: daughter Frances Saville became a prima donna in Mahler's famous company in Vienna, while granddaughter Frances Alda rose to star at the Met in New York alongside the legendary tenor Caruso and conductor Toscanini.