MILKA TERNINA
And the Royal Opera House
By Nada Premerl
211 pp, Zagreb 2006
ISBN 953-6942-24-0

This wonderful and most lavishly illustrated (catalogue) book was issued alongside an exhibition devoted to the Croatian singer (1863-1941) at the Royal Opera House. This exhibition ended last January but apparently will also travel to Munich, Bayreuth, New York and Boston later on though concrete plans for this seems to be lacking at the moment.
Ternina was one of those legendary artists who didn’t make any records and whose voice can only be ‘heard’ on the famed Mapleson cylinders. But as Lord Harewood writes in the book ‘to think one gains any genuine impression would be an illusion’. For those who nevertheless persist Ternina is featured as ‘a superb’ (quote Jean de Reszke)  Isolde and Tosca on Symposium CD 1284.
I can’t praise the book enough and if it is of some interest to you grab it before it is too late as
only 500 copies were printed! It was still available through the bookshop of the Royal Opera House on February 21.