Overture of Hope: Two Sisters' Daring Plan That Saved Opera's Jewish Stars from the Third Reich by Isabel Vincent (review)

Reviewed by: Overture of Hope: Two Sisters' Daring Plan That Saved Opera's Jewish Stars from the Third Reich by Isabel Vincent Jane Gottlieb Overture of Hope: Two Sisters' Daring Plan That Saved Opera's Jewish Stars from the Third Reich. By Isabel Vincent. Washington, D.C.: Regnery History, 2022. [xviii, 268 p. ISBN 9781684513499 (hardcover), $27.99; ISBN 9781684514069 (paperback), $16.99; ISBN 9781684513833 (ebook), $14.99.] Bibliography, index. Overture of Hope: Two Sisters' Daring Plan That Saved Opera's Jewish Stars from the Third Reich. By Isabel Vincent. Washington, D.C.: Regnery History, 2022. [xviii, 268 p. ISBN 9781684513499 (hardcover), $27.99; ISBN 9781684514069 (paperback), $16.99; ISBN 9781684513833 (ebook), $14.99.] Bibliography, index. To be honored by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, as the "The Righteous among the Nations," the name given to non-Jews who took great risks to save Jews during the Holocaust, is profound recognition of sometimes unimaginable heroism. Honored in 1964 were the British [End Page 331] sisters Ida and Louise Cook, who saved twenty-nine Jews from Germany and Austria in the late 1930s, inspired by their love of opera. Their own story, as recounted in Isabel Vincent's well-researched and compelling book, is one of operatic awe, or "you couldn't make this up." The Cook sisters were truly fangirls (or "groupies" in earlier parlance). Elder sister Louise (1901–1991) was the quieter of the two; it was Ida (1904–1986) who took on a pseudonym as Mary Burchell for publication of her romance novels (more than one hundred of them) and who first told their story in her own book, We Followed Our Stars (London: Mills & Boon, 1950; reissued as Safe Passage: The Remarkable Story of Two Sisters Who Rescued Jews from the Nazis [Toronto: Harlequin, 2008]). Born and raised in towns outside of London, the sisters worked in civil service jobs and lived together for most of their lives, following the paths available to English women in the years immediately after World War I. Their interest in opera began in 1923 (according to Ida's memoir), when Louise began to attend lectures about music by Sir Walford Davies, which were enhanced by music excerpts on gramophone recordings. Louise was thus inspired to become a record collector, saving money from her work to support her passion. The Cook sisters were incredibly frugal their entire lives and supported their passion for music—both recorded and live—by saving lunch money, sewing their own clothes, and otherwise going without luxuries (or indeed essentials). It should be noted that their improbable tale is also inseparable from the history of music dissemination via recording technology; their access to operatic repertoire might not have been realized if it were not for the availability of gramophone recordings. In 1924, the sisters managed to secure tickets to the highly anticipated British debut of Amelita Galli-Curci at London's Royal Albert Hall. (Securing such tickets for that concert would be comparable to securing Taylor Swift concert tickets today.) Strikingly bold, they sent a fan letter to Galli-Curci, along with a handkerchief embroidered by Ida. Evident of an earlier time in fandom, the diva sent them a thank-you note and invited them to meet her backstage after her final London concert. On that eagerly awaited backstage visit, the sisters decided that they would save their money and travel to New York to hear Galli-Curci sing opera. Which they did, arriving via ship on 4 January 1927. Somehow the stories of their boldness, passion, and determination—recounted carefully by Vincent—help us to understand their later heroism. The sisters became passionate fans of Rosa Ponselle following her own London debut in Vincenzo Bellini's Norma in 1929. They continued their operatic travels in the early 1930s, visiting Florence and other cities on the Continent, both aware of and somewhat blind to the dark political upheavals taking place. They met conductor Clemens Krauss and his wife, soprano Viorica Ursuleac, during one of his London tours. By this time Ida had added the role of photographer to her arsenal of fan activities; she took a photo of Clemens and his wife with her Brownie camera...

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