Enchantress of Nations

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"She was among 'the most brilliant dramatic stars of our time', according to Franz Liszt, and billed as 'the most talked of opera singer in Europe'. Dickens - reduced to tears by her singing - regarded her as 'one of the greatest actresses of any time'. Liszt also declared that, with Pauline Viardot, the world had finally found a woman composer of genius." "Enchantress of Nations is a lavish biography of this amazing woman whose life spanned most of the 19th century; and it also weaves a rich tapestry of music and literature in France, England and Russia. Michael Steen sympathetically and sensitively explores the passionate 40-year love-affair between Viardot and Ivan Turgenev, the great Russian novelist, as well as her stormy friendship with Charles Gounod, the celebrated French composer. We also meet George Sand, Dickens, Flaubert, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky; Rossini, Berlioz, Chopin, and Liszt, Saint-Saens, Faure and the other Paris-based composers, artists and singers of the period." "Steen recounts the back-stage bitchiness, robbery, duels and violence of Viardot's life and times. Among much else, we read of the unhappiness experienced by the progeny of successful parents - the life of Viardot's eldest child was blighted by a catlogue of miseries."--Jacket