I recently acquired a copy of the 1950 book, “The Foundations of Singing”, written by Franklyn Kelsey. Kelsey was born in 1891 in Hartlepool, and died in 1958.  He sang at Covent Garden from 1926 to 1934 as one of their principle Basses.  He taught singing at the University College of South Wales and the Cardiff Technical College.

He was a student of the French bass-baritone, Marcel Journet.

In reading the book, I’ve come to the realization that the training methods of what is considered the “Old Italian” school were so closely tied to the observation of natural vocal phenomena, that the ensuing freedom would ensure a voice that was free, agile, and supple; capable of dramatic and florid singing. This was also regardless of the nationality of the singer as well, as Kelsey states:

If a study is made of the recordings of, say, six representative sopranos of the old school, each of different nationality, e.g., Lilli Lehmann (German), Patti (Italian), Donalda (Canadian), Melba (Australian), Destinn (Czech), and Calvé (French), the fact emerges with startling clarity that every one of these voices, of widely different nationalities, displayed a characteristic tone, common to every one of them, which is no longer heard to-day in any soprano voice, Italian or otherwise. Each of these singers possessed a vocal quality which, quite apart from its own highly individual quality, was shared by all the others, and which, in fact, might be termed the characteristic quality of the soprano voice when used in a certain way. That vanished quality of the soprano voice is best described by the word “ethereal”. There was an “other-worldliness” about it, an “angelic” quality, particularly as it regards its head tones, which seemed to remove it from the storms and stresses of the workaday world, and which has all the appearance of a “hall-mark” – the hall-mark of the method in which it had been trained. Now you may choose any half dozen records which, to your idea, represent the six finest soprano singers of the last-quarter century, either of various nationalities or all Italian, and you will find, on comparing them with the records I have mentioned, that the old ethereal soprano quality is gone. However fine a singer the modern soprano may be, her voice now stamps her as being essentially a creature of earth.”

Here are representative YouTube Clips of Lehmann, Patti, Donalda, Melba, Destinn, and Calvé.