“‘I learned them all. At some point I bypassed my father and started buying the records myself. Ann Drummond-Grant was on six of them, in four contralto roles and two soubrette roles. In ninth grade, the last year of junior high, she was far and away the most important person in my life. I never mentioned her name to a soul. I told my parents I wanted singing lessons but didn’t say why.’”
It was winter in Syracuse, New York, and thirteen-year-old Marcia Menter was plagued with all the requisite teenage insecurities from negative body image to just feeling weird and out of place. When her father brought her a recording of the Mikado, she was unimpressed at first, but once she heard the music of Gilbert and Sullivan (G&S), her life took on a new meaning. Not only did she soon learn all the G&S operas by heart, but she also became obsessed with Ann Drummond-Grant, principal contralto of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, the preeminent British G&S troupe. The story of Menter’s quixotic dream of becoming a singer is combined with an investigative biography of her idol in her new memoir, THAT VOICE: In Search of Ann Drummond-Grant, the Singer Who Shaped My Life (Publication Date: July 2024; 978-1-64742-662-0; $17.95).
Ann Drummond-Grant rose from a working-class background to become a D’Oyly Carte principal in the 1930s—but lost her job for falling in love with the company’s musical director, Isidore Godfrey, who was married to someone else. Godfrey soon became her husband, but it was more than a decade before “Drummie” (as she was always called) was able to reclaim her place as a major player with the company. Drummie had a glorious voice, but as Menter learned over years of research, it was furious discipline that made her a beloved performer. She was a quiet, unpretentious woman whose dedication to her art was absolute, and whose early death came as a shock to fans on both sides of the Atlantic.
Menter dreamed of becoming a professional singer and joining the D’Oyly Carte, even though she knew the company didn’t hire Americans. But all through high school, and in college as a vocal performance major, Menter tried unsuccessfully to find a voice teacher who could help her develop her voice. Her stories of ineffective teaching methods and her own struggles with the physical mechanics of singing are told with wit, humor, and a gimlet eye.
THAT VOICE is at once a coming-of-age story and an account of what it takes to be a professional performer. It is also a tribute to a great singer, and a poignant reflection about the sometimes-unbridgeable gap between dream and reality. Menter’s journey is universal for people who come to understand and accept who they are. The journey itself is the point—especially when it’s as entertainingly told as this one.
THAT VOICE
In Search of Ann Drummond-Grant,
The Singer Who Shaped My Life
By Marcia Menter
She Writes Press
Publication Date: July 2024
ISBN: 978-1-64742-662-0
Original Trade Paperback
Price: $17.95 | Pages: 262