International Vocal Competition ‘s-Hertogenbosch
70-YEARS JUBILEE BOOK (Physical book)
Language book: ENGLISH !!
Pages: 136
FORMAT: Physical book.
Production: 401DutchDivas
© 2024 401DutchDivas/IVC
The 2024 issue of the International Vocal Competition ‘s-Hertogenbosch (IVC) 70-Years Jubilee Book is lavishly illustrated with hundreds of photographs from the IVC archives and the author’s private IVC archive. It largely diverges from the 50 years Anniversary book:
- It has all photos in colour, including those originally presented in black & white in the 2014 issue
- Instead of focusing on singer’s biographies on the right, it focuses on the actual ins and outs of comptitions, in which the winners and particularities are integrated.
- It still has the results on the left pages.
- It has an entirely different intro section.
- It is updated until 2024 and includes 15 additional pages.
- Together, both books preserve the history of the legendary International Vocal Competition ‘s-Hertogenbosch in full.
An incredible number of singers participated in the competition as off 1954. Starting with Dutch legends such as Elly Ameling or Maria van Dongen, the competition soon attracted international singers such as Ladislav Mráz and Halina Łukomska, Ursula Boese and Edna Graham. The 1960 were renowned for the participations of, among thousands of others, John Wakefield and Lise Arséguet (1960); Yvonne Minton (1961); Jules Bastin, Richard Novák and Giovanna Vighi (1962); Dan Iordăchescu (1963); Bożena Kinasz (1964); Viorica Cortez, Ileana Cotrubaș, Siegmund Nimsgern and Pompeiu Hărăşteanu (1965); Marina Krilovici (1966); Louis Hagen-William (1967); Csilla Zentai (1968); and Maria Slătinaru, Wolfgang Schöne and John Bröcheler (1969), László Polgár (1974), Misuko Shiray (1976), Nelly Miricioiù, Howard Crook (1979). The 1980s welcomed, among many others, Thomas Hampson (1980), Elżbieta Szmytka and Ildikó Komlósi (1982), Judith Malafronte (1983); Lani Poulson and Thomas Mohr (1984); Leontina Văduva (1985); Andrea Rost and Qing Miao (1986), Erik Kurmangaliev (1987); Ruth Ziesak, Adrianne Pieczonka and Claron McFadden (1988); Yvi Jänicke and Werner van Mechelen (1989); Oleg Malikov (1990); Petra Lang and Ralf Lukas (1991); and finally Angelina Ruzzafante (1994), Sophie Koch & Karina Gauvin (1994), Barbara Hannigan (1996), Lenneke Ruiten (2002), Cora Burggraaf & Measha Brueggergosman (2004), Joshua Ellicott & Kinga Dobay (2006), Pretty Yende (2008), Daniela Köhler (2010), nadine Koutcher & Gulnara Shafigullina (2012). All are included with biographies.
Another amazing list would be the jurors through those 50 competitions, starting with Julius Patzak and Franz Völker (1955) to Elisabeth Höngen, Jo Vincent (1956), Scipio Colombo (1961), Kim Borg (1962), Janine Micheau (1963), Josef Greindl (1966), Anton Dermota a(1968), Maria Stader (1969); Arta Florescu, Nan Merriman (1971), Gino Bechi, Gré Brouwenstijn (1973), Arthur Eisen (1974), Maureen Lehane (1982), Jules Bastin (1989), Carlo Cossutta and Irwin Gage (1991), Yvonne Minton (1992), Elly Ameling, Ileana Cotrubaș (1994), Grace Bumbry, Júlia Hamari, Tom Krause, Evelyn Lear and Thomas Stewart (1996), Cristina Deutekom, Jewgeni Nesterenko, John Shirley-Quirk (1998), Roberta Alexander, Nelly Miricioiù, Kenneth Montgomery (2004); Robert Holl and Charlotte Margiono (2006), Hanna Schwarz (2008) Sergei Leiferkus, Dunja Vejzović (2010), Ioan Holender, Siegfried Jerusalem and Peter Schreier (2012), Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Evamaria Wieser (2014).
The book is not just a treasure trove regarding the Internation Vocal Competition ‘s-Hertogenbsoch, but also regarding the way in which the art of opera and song transcended through the decades to the present. A unique feature, only available in the 50 Years Anniversary book, is the audio mp3 download (the physical book comes with a real cd, see there). It starts, amazingly, with recordings preserved on privately recorded tapes from the early 1950s!
The magic of the IVC is that everyone in the audience is a juror. When audience and press favorites such as Geraldine Hackett-Jones (1969) and Olga Maddalena (1961) were sent home empty-handed, audiences openly revolted. Time sided with the jury, as in about 70 percent of the cases where opinions diverged, but Maddalena and Hackett-Jones are IVC legends precisely for the sensation they caused in the heat of the moment. A singer who could move audiences and critics to tears in “Si, mi chiamano Mimì,” as Maddalena did, must have had something going for her. Press reports, based on countless original reviews and years of research, provide an incredible journey. Its a roller coaster through the world of singing 1954-2024.
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While the book comes without a CD such as included in the 2014 Jubilee Book, the CD is available separately in our IVC shop, and still serves the purpose it served in the earlier book: it documents IVC winners from Annete de la Bije in 1954 through Elly Ameling, Yvonne Minton, Jules Bastin and so on to Nadine Koutcher in 2014. There are also sensational non-winners such as Olga Maddalena, who caused a public riots when she wasn’t awarded the First Prize. Finally there’s a unique fragent of magda Olivero’s masterclasses, which we will shortly make available in full.
