Potter's accounts of the lives and work of the great tenors are enlivened by entertaining anecdotes. I was particularly delighted to read of James Joyce's infatuation with the voice of his compatriot, John O'Sullivan. In Paris, in 1929, to the singer's great embarrassment, Joyce, an amateur tenor himself, began a campaign of letters to promoters and conductors to boost O'Sullivan's career and complain of plots to end it. He even led an Irish claque at the Opera, shouting and wildly applauding his hero and booing and insulting his Italian rivals.

Reading the book makes one long to know more and, of course, if possible to hear the voices described: more than 70 pages are given over to a very useful directory of nearly 500 tenors of the last 400 years, listing relevant articles, books, websites, recordings and films, from Lorenzo Abrunedo (1836-1904) to Giovanni Battista Zingoni (1720-1811). This biographical list is available on the web at www.yalebooks.co.uk