Here is the remarkable and true story of Therese Tietjens (Titiens). To many she was the foremost soprano of mid-Victorian opera, but tragically she died at an early age. With rumours of romances and a mysterious ancestry, and first rising to fame in Hamburg and Vienna, she became the coveted prize of manager Benjamin Lumley at London's Her Majesty's Theatre. She would make London her home, but toured relentlessly, including North America and Europe, also performing at music festivals e.g. Crystal Palace, Three Choirs, Leeds, Brighton and Norwich. She worked alongside great composers and conductors (including Verdi, Gounod, Wesley, Benedict, Halle) and numerous renowned vocalists such as Mario, Nilsson, Patti and Trebelli-Bettini. Under the steely eye of agent and entrepreneurial theatre impresario 'Colonel' J. H. Mapleson, she became as important to his unconventional life as he was to her own. She acquired many admirers, including Her Majesty Queen Victoria, but was adored particularly by a sister of Alfred Lord Tennyson.Inevitably, her lively and artistic society led to backstage entanglements, to involvement in court cases, accidents, a disastrous fire, and even a direct association with the Kingswood murder.
When the press reported avidly on the scandalous love affair between Mrs. Agnes Windham (of Norfolk's Felbrigg Hall), and Tietjens' friend and co-star, the Italian tenor Antonio Giuglini, it was Tietjens who faced up to the opera company's critical audiences. Therese Tietjens (1831-1877) was cherished by thousands for her music, dramatic stage presence and acts of charity, and she was loved especially in Dublin where her enchanting rendition of 'The Last Rose of Summer' was legendary. Her death came just before the advent of sound recording, denying her a place in audio archives, but this well-researched and engaging biography by Susie Timms (whose Victorian relatives welcomed Tietjens to sing in their own home) restores a great Queen of Song to modern hearts and appreciation.